Man, when you pull the Son of Pentacles Reversed—or the Page, depending on your deck—your gut just sinks, right? You immediately think: procrastination, dropped the ball, total mess up. For years, every time that diligent kid on the horse showed up upside down, I wrote it off as a massive failure stamp. It meant I was stuck, I was dragging my feet, I wasn’t delivering, period. End of story. I was sure it was the universe yelling at me for being lazy.
But the practice I want to share with you today completely flipped that perspective for me, literally and figuratively. It wasn’t about being bad at my job; it was about being stubbornly committed to the wrong job.
The Grind that Went Nowhere
This all started about three years ago. I was working on a huge, complicated project for a client. It was stable, decent pay, and I was deep into that phase where you feel like you are the only person who can keep the whole thing running. I had dug myself into a trench of responsibility. I was operating on pure, unadulterated persistence—the kind the upright card promises.
I would wake up, start coding, fix issues, and repeat. I was spending 12 to 14 hours a day just hammering away. My schedule was rigid, my focus was intense, and I refused to budge. People told me to take a break, to renegotiate the contract, or even just walk away. I couldn’t. I kept telling myself: “You finish what you start. This is about integrity.”
During that time, I was also doing my regular morning readings. And guess what? The Son of Pentacles Reversed kept showing up. Every damn time. If it wasn’t in the main position, it was sneaking into the advice spot. I’d pull it out, glare at it, and throw it back into the pile. I saw the reversal, decided it meant I needed to work harder, and doubled down on my commitment to the doomed project.
My interpretation was so narrow: SOPR equals stagnation because I am lazy. But if I was working 80 hours a week, how could I be lazy? That dissonance was driving me crazy. My energy was depleted, my diet was garbage, and I hadn’t seen a friend in months. But I was ‘committed.’
The Forced Stop that Became Freedom
I never took the card’s advice to pivot because I was too proud to admit I had wasted six months on a sinking ship. The universe, though, is rarely polite when you ignore repeated warnings.
One Wednesday afternoon, I went to check in on the client’s system, and access was just gone. No warning. I emailed, I called, I checked Slack. Silence. The company, turns out, was hemorrhaging money and just decided to shutter the whole division I was working for. Overnight. Poof. My persistent, stubborn, 80-hour-a-week project was simply erased.
I was furious, initially. I felt cheated. I felt like the universe had confirmed the reversal card’s negative message: all my hard work had led to zero payoff. I pulled out my deck that night, totally devastated, and guess which card flew out onto the table? SOPR. Again.
But this time, I looked at the image differently. I wasn’t looking at a stubborn kid who wouldn’t move; I was looking at a person who was so focused on the tiny, immediate piece of land in front of them that they refused to see the rolling hills behind them. They were stuck, not because they couldn’t move, but because they wouldn’t lift their head up.
That forced unemployment was the best thing that ever happened to my career. It was the only way I, the stubborn fool, would stop working on that toxic project. The card wasn’t saying, “You failed.” The card was screaming, “STOP! THIS PATH IS CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING FREED!“
Embracing the Reversal’s Gift
When I finally took a break, cleaned up my desk, and reconnected with people, I realized everything the reversal had been trying to tell me. It wasn’t about failure; it was about misdirected energy. It’s a message that says:
- You are pouring effort into a well that is dry.
- You are too fixed on the micro-level to see the massive opportunity waiting elsewhere.
- You are resisting a necessary change because you fear the unknown more than you fear comfortable mediocrity.
Now, when I see SOPR reversed, I don’t panic. I breathe in and ask myself: “What am I too damn stubborn to let go of right now?” It’s my permission slip to pivot without guilt. It means that the current path I’m on, even if I committed to it six months ago, is no longer serving my highest good. It’s a sign to ditch the dead weight and redirect that incredible Pentacles energy toward something that actually deserves it. It’s not negative unless you refuse the gift of the mandatory pause.
