You know, lately I’ve been trying to keep things simple. Tried to finally tackle that small bathroom reno I’ve been putting off for three years. Figured it was just a weekend job. Boy, was I wrong. Everything started fine. I mean, I ripped out the old vanity and the toilet in about an hour flat, no sweat. Felt like a champ.
Then the shower happened. I pulled at the old tile. It was glued straight to some weird ancient plaster. The whole wall came down with a crash. Not just the tile, but the stuff behind it. Dust everywhere. I cursed out loud and spent the next hour just trying to shovel the wet, heavy mess into buckets.
That’s when the plumber showed up. I had him booked just to look at rerouting the drain line a bit. He took one look at the exposed studs, poked around with a flashlight, and his face just dropped. He told me there was major rot. Not just surface stuff. He said the pipe had been leaking for years, and it had compromised a load-bearing beam. He slammed me with an estimate that was four times what I had budgeted for the entire project. He wanted to basically rebuild half the wall from the foundation up.
I was stuck. I mean, the whole bathroom was now an open pit to the basement. I couldn’t just leave it. But that money? It was a disaster. I spent maybe two hours just staring at the wall, feeling that anxiety creep in, that heavy feeling like I’d just stepped into a bog and couldn’t pull my feet out. I needed to know if I should swallow the cost and push through, or if I should just board up the hole and save up for six months and live with a tiny plastic utility sink in the hall.
That’s when I decided to pull out the coins. I always tell myself that these readings are just a way to shut up the panic and get a clearer look at the problem. I grabbed three old copper pennies I keep in a worn leather pouch.
The Practice: From Question to Hexagram
My question was simple and direct:
- Should I proceed with the full, expensive repair now, or should I stop the project and wait?
I shook the coins hard in my hands, letting them clatter. My mind was still full of dust and plumbing bills. I threw them onto the small wooden table I use for this stuff, six times. I carefully recorded each line, from bottom to top, using a little notepad. I was looking for clarity, something simple like “GO” or “STOP.”
The lines came out like this:
- Line 1: Changing (moving)
- Line 2: Fixed (steady)
- Line 3: Fixed (steady)
- Line 4: Fixed (steady)
- Line 5: Changing (moving)
- Line 6: Fixed (steady)
I drew out the resulting structure. The bottom trigram was Zhen (The Arousing, Thunder). The top trigram was Kan (The Abysmal, Water).
When I put those two together, I realized immediately what I had gotten: Hexagram 3, Chun (Initial Difficulty).
The Realization: Interpreting the Mud
I sat back and just stared at the page. Hexagram 3. It’s maybe the messiest one out there. It means things are just starting. It means you’re stuck in the mud. The seed has just sprouted and is struggling to push through the dirt. It’s hard. It’s confusing. It’s exactly the feeling I had when I looked at that rotten beam.
It wasn’t a “STOP” sign. And it wasn’t a reckless “GO.” It was a warning wrapped in a roadmap. It said that the path forward is difficult and messy, but it is possible. The text spoke about seeking help, about not rushing headlong into things, and about being patient while everything is still forming. It mentioned ‘seeking assistance’ and ‘finding a place to settle.’
I focused on that bit: “seek assistance.” I had just accepted the first plumber’s diagnosis of total catastrophe. I had just taken the most expensive option as the only option.
The reading didn’t give me a technical solution, but it gave me an emotional course correction. It told me the difficulty was real, but that I hadn’t yet found the right way through the mud.
The Outcome: Finding the Helper
I shook off the panic, closed my notebook, and got back on the phone. I didn’t call the first guy back. I called three other licensed contractors. I waited two days for them to show up, which felt like forever with a tarp over the bathroom door, but I held firm.
Contractor number two and number three both agreed that there was rot. But they both disagreed with the first guy’s crazy structural plan.
The third guy, an old-timer named Al, looked at the beam, smiled, and said, “Kid, that’s just surface-level. It’s been damp, but it’s fine. We can sister a new piece of lumber to it for insurance, seal the crack, and you’re good to go. It’s an afternoon job.”
His bill? Less than a quarter of the first guy’s estimate.
So, was Hexagram 3 good or bad today? Well, if I had listened to the fear and the first plumber, it would have been awful. But the Hexagram forced me to pause, to acknowledge the mess, and to find the actual, necessary “helper.” The difficulty was real, but the way I handled it meant I pushed through the initial chaos without going bankrupt. It showed me that the toughest part of any problem is always just the start, and rushing never fixes anything. Now, I am pushing through the rest of the reno, and even though I’m covered in mortar dust, I feel like I started the day with a disaster and ended it with a solid plan, all because I stopped and listened to the advice about not charging blindly into the abyss.
That’s the practice, right there.
