Man, sometimes life just throws you for a loop, right? I remember this period a few years back, things felt… stuck. Like I was running in circles, trying to grab hold of something solid, but my hands just kept coming up empty. Work was okay, but not fulfilling. Home life had its ups and downs. Just generally felt like I was paddling hard but not moving forward. I needed something, some kind of compass, you know?
I’m not one for airy-fairy stuff, usually. I’m a practical guy. But after a particularly rough week where I felt like I was just reacting to everything instead of acting, I started poking around for ideas, anything that might give me a new angle. I stumbled onto some old philosophy stuff, and then, somehow, I landed on the I Ching. At first, it looked like a bunch of crazy lines and ancient mumbo-jumbo. I almost clicked away.
My First Hesitant Steps
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But something, I don’t know, a tiny voice, kept me looking. I found a worn-out copy of a book on it at a second-hand store – the kind with yellowed pages and a weird smell. I bought it, figured what the heck, it was cheap. I brought it home, put it on my desk, and just stared at it for a few days.
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Then one evening, I finally cracked it open. It was dense. Really dense. All about hexagrams and lines and judgments. My eyes glazed over pretty quick. But I kept at it, flipping through, just trying to get the gist. I kept seeing references to these specific numbers, these hexagrams.
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After a lot of skimming and head-scratching, I started to pick up on Hexagram 14. “Da You,” they called it. “Great Possessing.” My first thought was, “Yeah, right. Possessing what? More stress?” But the description really hammered home this idea of having abundance, not just in wealth, but in character, in spirit, in influence. And how that comes from being open, clear-headed, and fair. That kinda resonated with where I felt I was missing something – not stuff, but clarity.
Getting Down to Brass Tacks
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So, I thought, okay, let’s try this. I grabbed three old coins, the shiniest ones I could find in my change jar. The book said to toss them. So I did. Felt a bit silly, honestly, sitting there, throwing coins. But I did it six times, just like the book explained, to build up a hexagram. It was a mess trying to figure out which line was what, but I persisted.
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The first few times I cast, it didn’t make much sense. I’d get some random hexagram, and then I’d flip to the page, read the text, and think, “What the hell does this have to do with my rotten commute today?” I almost gave up. It felt like trying to read a roadmap written in an alien language.
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But I kept coming back to 14. I focused on that one. I just started reading and re-reading the lines for Hexagram 14 whenever I had a spare moment. During my lunch break, waiting for coffee, before bed. I stopped trying to “divine” so much and just tried to internalize the core message of “Great Possessing.” What did it truly mean to possess something great, not just externally, but internally?
The Light Bulb Moment
It wasn’t a sudden flash. It was more like a slow dawning. I started seeing how the principles of 14 applied to the small stuff. Like, if I approached a tough conversation at work with an open mind, ready to listen and share, instead of just trying to “win,” the outcome was always better. I “possessed” my calm, my willingness to understand. That’s a great possession, right?
I started consciously thinking about my daily interactions through the lens of Hexagram 14. Am I being generous with my time, my knowledge? Am I acting with integrity? Am I taking responsibility for my own stuff, my own actions, instead of blaming others? It shifted my whole perspective from feeling powerless to realizing I actually had a lot more control over my inner world than I gave myself credit for.
It wasn’t about getting rich quick or suddenly having all the answers. It was about realizing that I already possessed what I needed – the ability to choose my attitude, to act with intention, to build good relationships. And by actively recognizing and nurturing those “great possessions,” I found that other good stuff started flowing in naturally. My work felt more meaningful, my relationships became stronger, and that feeling of being stuck? It just started to fade away. It’s like, you gotta own your own journey, you know? Really grab hold of it.
