The Messy Start in 2021
Listen, 2021 was a dumpster fire. We all went through it, right? I was stuck in this job, making decent cash, yeah, but I was dying inside. I mean, literally. My boss was this guy who thought management meant standing six inches from your face and yelling about quarterly projections. I was pulling 60-hour weeks, my back hurt all the time, and I was staring at the ceiling at 3 AM every morning, just counting my failures.
I knew I needed out, but every time I opened my laptop and searched the job boards, I just saw the same crap. I updated my resume a dozen times. I begged my network for referrals. Nothing. I was totally blocked. I felt like I was trying to run through wet cement. I was so worn down, so mentally fried, I was ready to quit and sell everything just to get some peace.
The Dumb Key That Unlocked Everything
One Tuesday night, after slamming my laptop shut so hard it almost cracked, I just typed something utterly ridiculous into the search bar: “career horoscope pisces 2021.” Yeah, I know. I’m a Pisces, and I was desperate. I found some random site with four paragraphs of vague nonsense. It read like a fortune cookie on steroids. It said something about how “The Universe demands you pivot toward sectors linked to innovation and deep emotional connection, neglecting traditional structures.”
It was total garbage, but something clicked. I had tried all the “smart” stuff. Now, I decided to take the dumb route. I was going to use this ridiculous paragraph as my new, insane job search protocol.
My Four-Step Insane Practice Protocol
I scrapped my entire job search list immediately. Forget the boring corporate titles. I created four actionable steps directly from that horoscope garbage. This was my “practice record”:
- Step 1: The ‘Innovation’ Filter. I stopped applying to any company that had been founded before 2018. If they were old, they were ‘traditional,’ and I was trying to ‘neglect traditional structures.’
- Step 2: The ‘Emotional Connection’ Rule. Every single job description I looked at had to use a verb that sounded like it cared about people. No more ‘maximizing profit.’ I searched using keywords like ‘facilitating,’ ’empathy,’ ‘community,’ and ‘wellness.’
- Step 3: The ‘Weird Coffee’ Campaign. I identified thirty people in my network who I usually thought were too “out there” or “flaky.” These were the people working on strange startups, or who had totally non-linear career paths. I sent them personalized, slightly crude emails saying I wanted to talk about ‘breaking structural norms.’
- Step 4: The ‘Walk Away’ Trigger. If a potential employer used the word ‘synergy’ in the interview, I would immediately thank them and hang up. Period.
I spent the next two weeks implementing this madness. I drank awful coffee with people who told me to become a mushroom farmer and another who tried to sell me Bitcoin. The whole thing felt like a colossal, cosmic waste of time. But I kept forcing myself through the process.
The Breakthrough That Wasn’t Really Astrology
On the tenth “Weird Coffee” call, I met this woman, Sarah. She ran a tiny, boutique software firm that built apps for therapist scheduling—totally ‘deep emotional connection’ stuff. There was no job posting. Zero. But we talked for ninety minutes about my frustrations with my old job, how corporate life was just draining everyone dry, and how I needed to build something new. I didn’t hold back. I was tired, so I blurted out the whole crazy horoscope story.
I thought she’d laugh her head off. Instead, she just nodded very slowly. She said, “Your frustration is the innovation. You’ve defined the problem better than our entire team has.”
Two days later, she called me back. She told me she had created a new position for me: “Internal Systems Architect for Wellness.” Sounded like I’d be building computers, right? Nope. My actual job was to design and build the internal communication and scheduling infrastructure from scratch to ensure her team didn’t get burned out. I was literally solving the problem I had just walked away from, but for someone else.
I signed the offer within an hour. The pay was 30% higher than my old gig. The hours were firm: 9 to 5. I walked into my old office the next day, sent a one-line resignation email to my old boss—”Effective immediately. I’ve found my emotional connection.”—and walked straight back out. I blocked his number and deleted my corporate email account from my phone right in the parking lot.
The Real Lesson Learned
Did the stars give me a dream job? No. That’s stupid. But that silly, vague, 2021 Pisces career horoscope gave me the permission to stop doing the predictable thing. It forced me to break my own pattern. I needed an external, stupid mandate to stop applying for the same boring, soul-crushing roles. I realized the job wasn’t the goal; the potential and the anger to change things were already there inside me. I just had to use a really dumb, flimsy map to finally unlock my own damn potential. I’m happy now. I actually like what I do. And I keep that silly horoscope saved in a folder, just as a reminder that sometimes the weirdest advice is the kick in the butt you actually need to start moving.
