The Struggle of the Short-Fuse Life
Man, I gotta tell you, I was absolutely fed up. I was looking at my life and realizing I was the king of the false start. I had this great idea for a side business, I’d jump into it with both feet—buy the gear, set up the stupid website—all that jazz. Then, two weeks later? Nothing. I’d hit a wall, get bored, or just plain quit. Every single time. Like a damn firework, all flash and then poof, nothing but smoke. I was sick of it. I needed to know, seriously, how the hell do people actually last? How do you keep the damn ship sailing when the wind dies down?
I was sitting there, chewing on this problem, staring at the screen, and I just felt this deep need to go back to the basics. So I decided to quit googling ‘motivational hacks’ and try something that’s been around for three thousand years. The I Ching.
The Practical Session: Demanding an Answer
I went and found my three old Chinese coins. They’re heavy, crusty, and honestly, a little spooky. They sit in a little cloth bag I keep in the bottom of my desk drawer. I pulled them out, put them in a ceramic cup I usually use for espresso, and I just started shaking. I shook that thing like I was trying to rattle the secrets right out of the universe.
- I focused my intent: “Show me the real key to lasting. No BS.”
- I shook the cup hard for what felt like ten minutes, until my forearm was cramping up.
- I slopped the coins onto the desk, not gently, just dumped them.
I grabbed my notebook, and I started drawing the lines, six times, from the bottom up. I was tracking the values: three tails, three heads, two heads and a tail, whatever. Line after line, I was seeing it build up. I was watching the trigrams form.
The Verdict: Hexagram 32, Duration (Heng)
When I finally finished drawing the last line, I stared at the result. It was Hexagram 32, Heng. Duration. Persistence. Talk about a punch to the face. The universe clearly heard me. It wasn’t some soft, vague answer; it was exactly the word I needed.
I read the core Judgement, the one that tells you the big picture. It wasn’t about being fast or making a big splash. It was all about consistency and staying true to your inner purpose. It said something rough like, “Duration succeeds. No error. It is favorable to be firm and correct. It is favorable to have somewhere to go.” It’s not about finding a new angle; it’s about staying put and doing the damn thing right, steadily.
I also got a moving line. It was the solid Six at the top. This line basically screams, “Don’t get cocky or think you’ve got it all figured out.” It was called something like “Shaking Duration.” The warning was simple: if your duration is too agitated, too full of big, quick moves, you’ll fail. Your duration has to be quiet and steady, like a mountain, not a damn earthquake.
The Realization: My Past, Stupid Mistakes
Why did this hit me so hard? Why do I know this is the real deal? It’s because I’ve been the idiot who learned it the expensive way. I’ll never forget that construction gig I had back in 2010. I was supposed to be building a simple retaining wall for some rich snake of a developer.
I thought I was smarter than the process. The plans said to let the foundation cure for two full days before adding the first block layer. Two days! I saw that as two days of lost paychecks. I told myself, “Nah, this concrete mix is fast-setting; I’ll save time, finish early, and look like a hero.” I even cut the rebar a little short, figuring no one would notice. I was trying to rush duration.
I powered through the whole wall in a day and a half. I grabbed my pay, feeling great, like I’d cheated the system. Two days later—a massive rainstorm hit. And that stupid, beautiful retaining wall? It didn’t just fall over. It slumped right into the guy’s backyard, the blocks separating from the cheap, rushed foundation like they were never meant to be together.
The snake developer? He vanished. I was the one who got the nasty call, the one who had to spend the next two weeks cleaning up the mess and paying for the replacement materials. I’d saved myself two days of slow, steady work, only to spend three weeks in hell, working for free, and nearly getting slapped with a lawsuit. It cost me every spare dollar I had. I was eating canned beans and wondering why my life was such a train wreck.
The Key to Duration
That disaster was the painful lesson. It wasn’t about the job; it was about the attitude. I learned that if you don’t lay the right foundation slowly, and endure the proper, boring process, the whole damn thing will crash right back down on you.
When I saw Hexagram 32 this morning, that collapsing wall flashed in my head. You can’t demand to finish quickly; you have to be the duration. You have to be the slow, boring foundation that just keeps holding on. So, for this current project? No fireworks. Just one hour today. Then one hour tomorrow. I’m trading the ‘shaking duration’ for the steady, solid foundation. That’s the only key.
