No. I didn’t get that big salary hike in August 2017. Not even close. In fact, what I got was the total opposite. It still feels like a slap in the face thinking back on it, which is exactly why I went digging for this raggedy old horoscope in the first place.
I am a Pisces, and back then, I actually paid attention to that stuff. When you’re grinding hard, you look for validation anywhere, right? I was crushing a huge project for months. The hours were insane. I prepped my entire argument for a raise—talking market value, talking my output, talking commitment. The big review meeting was locked in for the second week of August 2017.
The Expectation and The Great Blindside
I remember seeing the prediction around late July. Some online blog was talking about Jupiter and Neptune aligning for my sign, saying it was a time for “unprecedented financial advancement” and to “boldly ask for what you deserve.” I printed that thing out, folded it up, and stuck it in my briefcase. It was my secret weapon, my motivation. I was going to walk out of that August meeting with 20% more cash in my pocket.
I finished the project deployment on August 4th. Flawless. Everyone was high-fiving. I was feeling untouchable. The meeting with the VP was scheduled for the 8th.
But then, on August 7th, I walked in and my access card didn’t work. I thought it was a temporary glitch. I went to see my manager, thinking I’d laugh it off. I was told to wait in the HR office. I waited there for thirty solid minutes, feeling my stomach turn into a knot. Finally, some guy from upstairs—someone I’d barely exchanged two words with—came down, sat across from me, and read a scripted paragraph. The company was “restructuring.” My role was “redundant.”
Redundant. After those months of 80-hour weeks. The raise meeting was canceled, and I was given a box and a security guard to watch me pack my desk. No raise. No bonus. Just a two-week severance check that barely covered my rent. It hit me like a truck. I felt stupid, betrayed, and completely blindsided by the sheer suddenness of it all. I didn’t even argue. I just packed my stuff and walked out into the sticky summer heat of August.
The Years That Slipped Away
That little piece of paper—the horoscope prediction about the “financial advancement”—it was mocking me. I ripped it up and threw it in the trash on the way home. For the next eight months, I scrambled and clawed my way through interviews and short-term contracts just to keep the lights on. I sold my old motorcycle. I burned through all my minimal savings. The thought of checking a horoscope ever again made me physically sick.
Life finally started turning around about a year later. I landed a solid, but slightly lower-paying, role at a smaller company. I learned to rely only on the numbers and my own work ethic, not on planets or astrology. I built my career back up, brick by painstaking brick.
The Accidental Rediscovery (The Real Practice)
So why did I start poking at this old subject now, years later? The actual practice started a few weeks ago. I was finally cleaning out a dusty external drive—one of those old raggedy ones I used for backups back in 2017. I was going to wipe it clean and sell it.
I plugged the thing in and started dragging files to delete. I accidentally opened a folder named “Career Prep.” Inside were old resumes, negotiation notes, and then, a single text file titled, literally, “August 2017 Money Prediction.”
I clicked it open. I literally paused and had to stand up from my chair. There it was, the exact quote I remembered seeing:
- The Horoscope Claim:
“Pisces, August 2017 brings a major financial tipping point. Ask. Demand. You are guaranteed a significant salary hike or a massive inflow of funds from an unexpected source. Seize this opportunity.”
I sat there for five minutes, just staring at the glowing text on my screen. I compared the glowing prediction to the cold, hard memory of that HR meeting and the guard watching me pack my desk. The stark disconnect was hilarious, in a dark way. I started laughing. Not because it was funny, but because it was so utterly wrong, so completely misguided. It promised a major hike; I got a major layoff.
The Final Conclusion and The Real Hike
The entire practice was digging up that old lie and facing it with the truth of my experience. The process showed me that all those hours, all that hope I put into an external prediction, was worthless. The stars didn’t give me squat. They promised me cash, and I got pink-slipped.
Did I ever get that big salary hike? Yes, I did. But it took three more years of solid work, a total industry switch, and moving to a competitor. I fought for it, I demanded it, and I earned it. The real hike had nothing to do with August 2017 or celestial alignment. It happened when I stopped looking up at the sky and started putting my head down and focusing on the work. I still have the text file on my desktop, just as a reminder. Don’t trust the blogs, trust the balance sheet of your own effort. That’s the real practice recorded right there.
