Man, so, I gotta tell you about this Hexagram 46 thing. It wasn’t like I was looking for it, you know? Life was kinda stuck in the mud, felt like I was spinning my wheels for a while there. Nothing felt like it was moving forward, just kinda… existing. I was always good at doing stuff, getting things done, but this time it was different. Felt like I was pushing a rock uphill and it kept rolling back down.
I remember one night, just staring at the ceiling, totally fed up. I’d been dabbling in the I Ching for a bit, not really seriously, more like a novelty. But that night, desperate for some kind of sign, I pulled out my old set of coins. You know, just copper coins, nothing fancy. I figured, what’s the harm? I needed a fresh look at whatever mess I was in.
I thought about what was bugging me most. It was this feeling of being stagnant, like I had good ideas but couldn’t get them to lift off. So I held those coins in my hands, really focused on that question, you know? “How do I get unstuck? How do I make things happen?” I shook ’em up, tossed ’em, watched ’em fall. Did that six times, carefully wrote down the lines as they came. Slow, deliberate, like building something piece by piece.
When I finally had all six lines, I looked it up. And there it was, big as day: Hexagram 46, Sheng – Pushing Upward (Ascending). My first thought was, “Well, that’s almost too on the nose, isn’t it?” But then I started reading into it. It wasn’t about some sudden burst or an explosion of energy. It talked about gradual progress, about roots growing deep before the stalk shoots up. It was about persistence, about being willing to keep at it, one step at a time, moving upwards naturally.
The key phrase that really smacked me was about “success” coming through “accordance with the times.” It wasn’t about forcing it, but finding the right moment, the right way to apply my effort. Like a plant pushing through the soil, it doesn’t fight the earth, it works with it.
So I started thinking, okay, how does this actually apply to my real-life grind? I had this project I was trying to get off the ground, a creative thing I was passionate about, but kept hitting walls. I’d been trying to rush it, trying to skip steps, thinking I could just power through. The I Ching was telling me, “Nah, man. Slow down. Build the foundation.”
First thing I did was re-evaluate my approach. I pulled back from trying to force big leaps. Instead, I broke the whole project down into tiny, manageable steps. Like, super tiny. Instead of “finish the whole thing,” it became “work on this one small part for an hour.” I started keeping a log, not just of what I did, but how I felt about the progress, no matter how small. I was tracking my effort, my time, my little wins.
I remember one day, I was super frustrated, felt like I was backsliding. But then I looked at my log. And even though that specific day felt rough, the previous week showed consistent small increments. It was like the hexagram was a mirror, showing me the steady upward movement I wasn’t seeing in the day-to-day struggle. It forced me to zoom out a bit, to see the bigger picture of accumulation.
- I stopped obsessing over the finish line.
- I focused purely on the next tiny step.
- I celebrated the small efforts, not just the big outcomes.
- I started trusting the process, not just my own raw push.
It wasn’t magic, of course. There were days I wanted to throw in the towel. Days when I felt the old stagnation creeping back. But then I’d remember that image of the plant, steadily pushing upwards, finding its way to the light. It doesn’t question its growth, it just grows. And I had to do the same.
Embracing the Climb
I started telling myself, “Just keep pushing. Just keep adding that little bit.” I shifted my mindset from “I need to achieve X” to “I need to do Y today, no matter how small.” The “success” wasn’t some sudden explosion; it was the accumulation of all those small, steady pushes. The project didn’t instantly launch into the stratosphere. Instead, it slowly, almost imperceptibly, started picking up steam.
I found myself getting better at spotting the right times to push harder and the times to just gently nurture the growth. I built connections, I improved skills, I learned things I would have rushed past before. It was like I was laying down roots, strengthening the foundation without even realizing it. The upward movement became less about brute force and more about natural unfolding.
And eventually, it happened. My project, the one that felt impossible to move, it started to gain traction. Not with a bang, but with a steady, undeniable ascent. People noticed, opportunities showed up, and suddenly, I looked back and realized just how far I’d actually come. It was Hexagram 46, playing out in real time. It taught me that real success often isn’t about giant leaps, but about consistent, patient, upward pushing. It’s about trusting that if you keep planting seeds and tending to them, things will eventually grow and ascend.
