The Point Where I Just Snapped and Grabbed the Astrology Book
You know, for years, I always approached career planning like a spreadsheet. Logic, data, market trends. Everything had to be sensible. That approach worked great until it totally blew up in my face last spring. I was cruising, right? Senior role, decent pay, thought I was set for life. Then the whole reorganization happened.
We spent nine months building out this massive, ridiculously complex internal project management system. I poured every ounce of effort into getting that thing done. Then, three days before launch, some VP who didn’t understand the first thing about operations decided the whole UI needed to be purple and include a mandatory, totally pointless ‘inspirational quote of the day’ widget. I argued. I reasoned. I showed him the metrics, the user feedback, everything. He just smiled, patted me on the back, and said, “It needs more soul.”
I swear, that was the exact moment I realized my perfectly rational career path was completely insane. I walked out of that meeting, went straight back to my office, and started throwing out every single career guide I owned. I decided if ‘soul’ was the criteria, I was done with logic. I was going full esoteric. I’m a Pisces, and I thought, screw it, let’s see what the stars say.
Diving Headfirst into the Astrological Black Hole
My first move wasn’t subtle. I didn’t just casually look up my sign. I purchased and consumed every single piece of Piscean career content I could find for a whole weekend. I mean, the usual suspects immediately popped up: Artist, Musician, Nurse, Counselor, Filmmaker. It’s all about creativity and empathy, right? The problem is, I tried being an ‘artist’ when I was 22. I starved.
So, the practice wasn’t just finding the list; the real work began when I grabbed those vague suggestions and forced them through a filter of practicality. This is where I started applying my old data analysis skills to the new, airy-fairy inputs.
I categorized the results into three buckets:
- The Dreamy Stuff (High Empathy, Low Salary Floor): Sculptor, Poet, Charity Worker.
- The Service Stuff (High Empathy, Stable Income): Nursing, Physical Therapy, Teaching, Social Work.
- The Creative/Systemic Stuff (Using Imagination to Solve Problems): UX Design, Technical Writing, Consulting in highly specialized niche fields.
I quickly ruled out the Dreamy Stuff. Rent still exists, people. But I focused heavily on the other two. I wasn’t going to quit my job, so I needed an angle I could pivot into without massive retraining.
Vetting the “Pisces Jobs” Against Real-World Pain Points
This is where the boots-on-the-ground research kicked in. Instead of trusting some random zodiac site, I set up informal interviews. I used LinkedIn, I harassed old friends, I even cold-called people who worked in these fields. I wanted to know the gross, messy truth of the day-to-day work.
I spent two weeks talking to teachers. Everyone told me the same thing: high empathy needed, but the bureaucracy will crush your soul. It was my purple-UI VP problem all over again, just with less money. I crossed teaching off the list.
Then I talked to Technical Writers and UX Designers. This was interesting. They use their empathy—the key Piscean trait—to figure out what the user actually needs, not what the coder thinks they need. They take a complex, messy system and translate it into something clean and human. That’s pure imaginative problem-solving. My notes started stacking up:
- Technical Writing: Requires deep diving into complex, often chaotic internal systems (my specialty!) and bringing clarity. It’s empathy for the confused user.
- UX Research: Requires actively listening and observing, avoiding assumption, and designing emotionally satisfying journeys. Again, high empathy, high technical value.
What I realized was that the best career option wasn’t the job title itself, but the application of the core Piscean trait (empathy and imagination) to a system that desperately needs it. I identified a massive gap in my own company where our internal documentation was absolute garbage—a total embarrassment.
The Pivot and Documentation of My New Reality
I didn’t quit. Instead, I took everything I learned and engineered a new internal role. I wrote a proposal focused entirely on ‘User Experience Documentation & Training Clarity.’ I didn’t mention astrology once, naturally. I just showed them how much money they were wasting because nobody could follow the broken internal instructions.
They approved the role. It wasn’t the sexy ‘starving artist’ path, but it utilized 100% of the traits the zodiac research pointed to: high empathy, imaginative system structuring, and deep diving into complex data (the water signs are good at that deep dive stuff). I started documenting everything I touched, making the processes painless, and actually listening to the complaints people had.
Honestly, the stress dropped immediately. I am using my brain to solve real human problems instead of arguing about the color purple. The research—the messy, chaotic, weird blend of spreadsheet logic and star signs—actually pushed me into a place where I feel genuinely useful for the first time in years. Sometimes you have to look totally outside the box to figure out what was logically sitting in front of you the whole time.
