You know, life throws curveballs, right? Sometimes you’re just cruising along, doing your thing, and then suddenly, you hit a wall. Or maybe it’s not even a wall, just a huge, misty, unclear path ahead. That’s what it felt like for a lot of folks I knew, and honestly, a bit for me too, a while back. Everyone was talking about “pivoting,” “reinventing,” “finding their passion.” Sounded great on paper, but in reality, it often just meant a whole lot of head-scratching and anxiety.
I’ve always been drawn to the weirder, more intuitive stuff, you know? Not in a spooky way, but just in looking beyond the obvious. I picked up a deck of tarot cards a few years ago, mostly on a whim. Just thought they looked cool, honestly. Started just messing around with them for myself, pulling a card for the day, seeing what resonated. It was never serious, just a little personal ritual. I never even thought about doing a reading for someone else, let alone a career reading.
Then things changed. I saw so many friends, good people, just completely stuck in their jobs or utterly bewildered about what to do next. They’d hit their late twenties, early thirties, and suddenly the “dream job” they chased out of college felt like a gilded cage, or worse, just a dead-end street. They were burning out, feeling lost, and honestly, pretty helpless. I heard so many conversations ending with, “I just wish someone could tell me what to do.”
One evening, chatting with a buddy who was really down in the dumps about his job – completely drained, feeling worthless – I just blurted it out. “Hey man,” I said, “I know this sounds kinda out there, but I’ve got these tarot cards. Wanna just… try it? See what comes up? No big deal, just for fun, a different perspective.” He looked at me like I’d grown a second head, but then, with a shrug, he agreed. He was desperate for anything, I guess.
I got really nervous when he said yes. My heart started thumping. I’d never done a real reading for someone else, never with actual intent like this. And career? That’s heavy stuff. People’s livelihoods. But I’d offered, so I had to follow through. I spent that whole day before our call just trying to get my head straight. I pulled out my old tarot books, thumbed through the meanings, trying to remember what each card usually hinted at. I even did a practice spread for myself, just to feel the flow of it. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just pulling random cards and making stuff up, you know? I really wanted to offer something helpful.
When we finally got on the video call, I laid out my deck on my old kitchen table. It felt a bit awkward at first, me sitting there, shuffling these cards, him just watching through the screen. I explained how it worked, how it’s not about predicting the future, but about shedding light on current energies, challenges, and potential paths. I told him to focus on his career question, whatever was weighing on him most. He closed his eyes for a moment, and I shuffled the cards slowly, deliberately, trying to clear my own mind and just be open.
I pulled the first card, then the next, and the next, laying them out in a simple three-card spread: past, present, future energies. As I turned them over, one by one, and started talking through what I saw, what the cards usually meant, it was wild. Things just started clicking. He kept nodding, sometimes his eyes would widen, sometimes he’d just sigh. I wasn’t telling him what to do, just reflecting back what the cards seemed to suggest about his situation, his strengths, his hidden worries, and some of the opportunities he might be missing because he was so focused on the negative stuff.
We talked for almost an hour. By the end of it, he wasn’t suddenly jumping for joy or quitting his job on the spot. But there was a noticeable shift. He looked… calmer. He said it was like I’d just put words to a bunch of feelings he’d had but couldn’t quite articulate. He felt like he had a starting point, a direction to at least think about, rather than just being completely lost at sea. It wasn’t a magic bullet, but it was a little spark of clarity, and that felt huge.
After that, something clicked for me too. It wasn’t about being an expert or having all the answers. It was about offering a different kind of listening, a structured way for someone to look at their own situation from a new angle. It wasn’t about telling them what to do, but helping them see their own path more clearly. That free reading, just for my friend, showed me the power in simply holding space and using a tool like tarot to help people untangle their own thoughts. It wasn’t about being right; it was about being a mirror. And that, I realized, was a pretty cool thing to be.
