My Dumb Stress and That Deck
I’ve always kept things simple. I used to laugh at people who fussed about ‘The Universe’ and aligning chakras and all that junk. I’m a practical person. I only deal in what I can touch or what I can log in my journal. But man, the last three weeks? They have been a complete, unrelenting mess.
I was stuck between two jobs. The one I had was paying the bills, but the manager, Greg, was a complete snake. The kind of guy who calls you at 10 PM on a Sunday to ask if you’ve “prepared enough” for Monday’s meeting. He was systematically dismantling my sanity, piece by piece. I knew I needed to bail. The new opportunity? It was a contract gig. More money, better hours, but zero stability. No benefits, no guaranteed work after six months. I was paralyzed. For days, I just kept looping the problem in my head, talking to everyone—my neighbor, my landlord, the guy at the coffee shop. Useless. Everyone had a different opinion. I felt like one of those Bilibili teams the old man was talking about—a bunch of tiny, contradicting technical stacks all pulling in different directions, and I was the one drowning in the middle.
I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere talking. I had to shut up and pull the trigger on a decision, one way or the other. I needed a clear signal, something external that wasn’t Greg’s sneer or my neighbor’s terrible advice.
That’s what made me remember that awful, cheap-looking Rider-Waite deck I bought five years ago. It wasn’t for reading. I bought it because I was killing time at a flea market out near Phoenix, waiting for a tow truck, and the stall owner looked like she needed the ten bucks more than I did. It stayed in the original box, shoved behind my winter gloves, untouched.
The Setup: Dragging It Out and Asking the Stupid Question
I dug the damn thing out. It was dusty and smelled like old cardboard. I didn’t wash my hands, I didn’t light a sage smudge, I didn’t put on some calming sitar music. That’s for the people who make YouTube videos. I just sat down at my worn-out kitchen table, pulled out one of my notebooks, and started.
The first action was to get the question right. You can’t ask “When will I be rich?” that’s just lazy fantasy. You need something actionable. I grabbed a pen, and after five minutes of scribbling, I landed on it. I printed it in all caps, like a legal document:
- SHOULD I IMMEDIATELY QUIT MY SALARY JOB (GREG) AND ACCEPT THE RISKY CONTRACT OFFER BEFORE THE DEADLINE?
That’s what I call a burning question. It has urgency, and a clear set of options. No ambiguity. I put the notebook face down. I was ready to process the cards.
The Practice: Shuffle, Cut, Deal
The process was simple. Forget the complicated spreads you read about. I went with the most basic, direct 3-card spread you can find—the Past-Present-Future setup, but I mentally relabeled the positions to better suit my yes/no question.
I decided to define the positions as:
- Card 1: Where I Am Now (The Current Hellhole).
- Card 2: What Action I Must Take (The Necessary Move).
- Card 3: If I Take That Action (The Outcome).
I took the deck and started shuffling. Not fancy, not mystic. I shuffled it like a normal deck of playing cards. I kept my eyes closed, forcing my brain to cycle through the image of the office, the contract, Greg’s face, the fear of running out of money. I literally kept whispering the question to myself while my hands were at work. I must have shuffled for a solid five minutes until my hands cramped up a little. When I felt the deck was finally loose and mixed up enough, I slapped it down.
I picked it up with my right hand, and then, using my non-dominant left hand—the one closer to my heart, or whatever—I cut the deck into two piles. I stacked the top pile on the bottom. Done. No more cutting or fussing. You have to commit to the cut.
Then I laid them out, face down, in a simple row, left to right.
-
Card 1. Card 2. Card 3.
The Results: Turning Over the Answer
This is the part that actually works. You have to be ready for the punch. I flipped Card 1 first.
Card 1 (The Current Hellhole): The Tower (Reversed).
Are you kidding me? A Tower is bad enough—immediate disaster, collapse, fire. The Tower Reversed means the disaster has already happened, or that I’ve been resisting the inevitable change for too long. It was confirmation. The job isn’t about to collapse; it’s already rotten, and I’m just standing inside the walls waiting for it to fall on my head. I laughed. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it was the answer I needed. It was the clear picture of the situation I was denying. Greg had won, but only because I let him.
I flipped Card 2.
Card 2 (The Necessary Move): Eight of Swords.
The card of being blindfolded, surrounded by swords, totally immobilized. But here’s the kicker with that card: the person on it is never actually tied up. The blindfold is always loosely placed. The prison is entirely in the mind. The necessary action? The cards were saying: Stop feeling sorry for myself. Just take the blindfold off. Stop convincing myself I’m trapped by the new contract’s lack of benefits or by Greg’s power. The action I needed to take was mental—to stop feeling trapped and just move.
Finally, I flipped Card 3.
Card 3 (The Outcome): The Star.
A beautiful, clear, big-picture yes. The Star is hope, healing, and guidance after a time of trouble (like The Tower). It means you’ve found your path and the Universe—or whatever—is on your side. It’s the highest form of spiritual clarity. It was a damn strong answer. It wasn’t the Sun, which is aggressive joy, but it was quiet, powerful, long-term hope and healing.
Conclusion: Logging the Decision
I sat there for maybe two minutes, just staring at the three pieces of cheap cardboard. No noise, no drama. Just a simple, blunt command:
- Your current situation is a long-dead disaster (Tower Reversed).
- Your only action is to stop feeling trapped (Eight of Swords).
- The outcome of that move is long-term hope and clarity (The Star).
I didn’t need to ask anything else. I didn’t need to consult an online dictionary of card meanings. I grabbed my notebook, logged the cards and my exact interpretation, and then I grabbed my phone. I didn’t wait for Monday. I didn’t wait for Tuesday. I immediately wrote the email and got out of Greg’s hellhole job. This whole thing, from digging out the deck to having a concrete plan of action, took maybe fifteen minutes.
Anyone can do this, honestly. It’s not about being a psychic. It’s about forcing yourself to look at the problem through a new lens, through a completely neutral system, so you stop lying to yourself. You don’t need the years of study. You need a deck, a burning question, and the guts to follow the simple steps. End of story.
