The Moment I Gave Up on Logic
I hit a wall recently, a really hard one. It wasn’t a sudden crisis, more like the slow, painful realization that my hustle had flatlined. You know that tiny business I tried to launch last year? The custom-made, upcycled denim gear? It completely went belly up. No kidding. I dumped my savings into materials, marketing, and a tiny, overpriced storage unit I called my studio. When I finally called it quits, I was staring at a credit card statement that looked like a joke and an inventory pile that just mocked me.
Suddenly, I was scrambling, and everything felt frantic. Every job application felt like throwing darts blindfolded. I was applying for stuff I hated just to keep the lights on. That’s when my friend Kevin stepped in. Kevin is a total, unapologetic astrology junkie. He’s Pisces, and he was freaking out about his ‘Saturn Return’ or some garbage. He kept texting me these screenshots of daily horoscopes, saying I needed to ‘align my professional purpose.’ I usually tell him to go meditate on a cactus, but honestly, I was drinking coffee at 3 PM and seeing the bottom of the bank account. I had nothing but time and a serious case of desperation. I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? I’d lose five minutes to a silly practice, right?
Typing and The Trash Pile of Keywords
So, I went for it. I typed in the exact title of this post, or something close to it: ‘career horoscope career horoscope pisces now.’ Yeah, I typed it twice because I was half-asleep. What popped up was just a massive, confusing dump. Seriously, it was like listening to three different people talk over each other at a party.
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One site, super glossy with weird nebula backgrounds, was yammering on about needing an ‘intuitive communication role’ and working near water. I live in the middle of a city, nowhere near a decent river.
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Another, which looked like it was designed in 2003, suggested ‘creative fields focused on healing.’ I’m not a doctor and I can barely draw stick figures, so that was out.
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The third one, which seemed the most aggressive, screamed about ‘social justice advocacy or non-profit work where my sensitivity is an asset.’ That was a total curveball, but it sounded slightly more realistic than ‘intuitive water whisperer.’
It was a mess. But I forced myself to stop rolling my eyes and start filtering the junk. I treated the horoscope like a terrible, vague client brief. I pulled out the only three actual actionable keywords from the noise: Intuitive, Creative, Non-Profit/Social Focus.
The Terrible Filter and The Unexpected Backdoor
Here’s where the actual work started. The stars didn’t give me job titles; they gave me a terrible filter. I chucked the idea of searching for ‘creative healing jobs’ and instead tried to translate those keywords into real-world stuff that people actually get paid for. I started with:
Intuitive + Creative: This led me to things like UX Researcher, Content Strategist, and even Event Coordinator. I applied for a dozen, but they all wanted massive portfolios or specific degrees I didn’t have. Dead end.
Non-Profit/Social Focus: This was the weird one. All the listings for non-profits were for administrative assistants or grant writers, which are great jobs, but way out of my lane. I almost deleted the search history and went back to LinkedIn.
But then, I remembered something. This is the crucial part. Back in college, I knew a guy, Ben. Ben was the most sensitive, artsy, Pisces-type dude you could imagine, and he had totally burned out trying to be a freelance musician. We hadn’t spoken seriously in five years, but I knew he ended up working for a tiny local foundation that helped fund after-school arts programs.
I almost didn’t message him. It felt pathetic, reaching out to an old acquaintance because a website told me to look into ‘social justice.’ But I swallowed my pride and sent him a simple, casual text: “Hey, Ben, seeing any interesting gigs floating around your world? My denim thing dried up.”
The Real Job Opportunity Was a Vague Vibe
Ben didn’t have a job for me. He had something much better. He told me the foundation was scaling down on the grant side, but a new local startup was building a platform to connect small foundations with artists needing micro-loans. And guess what they needed? Someone to handle their Community Liaison and Storytelling. They needed someone who could intuitively communicate the artist’s needs and creatively connect them to the funding source. It was exactly the vague intersection of the horoscope keywords, just in a job title I would never have searched for.
I sent my portfolio (the remnants of my denim failures, repackaged as ‘entrepreneurial project management’) and my application. I landed an interview immediately. This isn’t one of those fairy-tale endings where I got the job instantly, but I’m now three rounds in and waiting for the final offer. It felt real, felt right, and the initial listing wasn’t even public yet—it was a word-of-mouth opportunity.
Did the stars get me the gig? Absolutely not. The horoscope was a steaming pile of vague nonsense. But the discipline of taking that nonsense and forcing myself to translate it into three applicable, real-world keywords—and then applying those keywords to my real-world network—that’s what opened the backdoor. It snapped me out of the ‘applying for what I know’ rut and put me in the ‘applying for what I secretly need’ lane. The process works, even if the source material is total B.S. Stop waiting for the universe to align and start using its terrible suggestions to filter your life. That’s the real hack.
