You know, people always ask me why I bother keeping track of this kind of stuff. Why would a reasonably sane adult spend time comparing their life path to some random forecast written in 2015? Well, 2016 was a complete disaster, that’s why. Not for the world, maybe, but for me personally, it felt like the floor had dropped out.
I didn’t start this project as a serious study. I started it out of sheer panic and boredom. Back then, I had just quit a high-stress job—the kind that makes you forget what day of the week it is—and was waiting for the paperwork to clear on a big move across the country. I was living in a half-packed apartment, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by boxes, with absolutely nothing to do but stress and worry about the unknown future. It felt paralyzing.
One miserable Tuesday morning, I saw an article pop up: “Your 2016 Pisces Forecast: Major Changes Ahead!” I figured, what the heck, maybe the stars know something I don’t. I started screen-grabbing the major monthly predictions from three different sites—one super vague one, one supposedly “spiritual” one, and one totally commercial fluff piece. I dumped those screenshots into a folder on my desktop, thinking I’d look at them maybe once a month. I labeled the folder: “Lies 2016.”
The Messy Process of Digging Up Old Crap
Fast forward to a few months ago, I was doing a massive clean-up of my cloud storage, trying to cut down on unnecessary files, and I stumbled across that old folder. “Lies 2016.” I opened it up, and suddenly, I had a project. I decided I was going to pull every single one of those monthly predictions out and compare them against my real life, minute by minute, event by event. This turned into a huge pain in the butt.
First, I had to retrieve all my actual 2016 data. This involved:
- Sifting through years of old Gmail threads to find important dates and communications.
- Downloading my old Google Calendar archives to see what appointments I actually kept.
- Reading through a tiny, embarrassing Moleskine journal I kept for maybe three months that year (it chronicled my feelings about changing jobs and my dating failures).
I transcribed the core predictions for each month onto a big spreadsheet. For example, the May 2016 prediction from Site A might be, “A major financial breakthrough leads to unexpected travel.” Site B might say, “Focus on healing old wounds through communication.” Site C: “Expect love to bloom mid-month!”
Categorizing the Hits: My Scoring System
Once I had all 36 predictions (12 months x 3 sources) next to the real events of my life, I had to define what “accurate” meant. Because let’s be honest, half of these predictions are so generalized they could apply to a stray cat.
I implemented a simple, brutal scoring system. This was crucial for objectivity (or as much objectivity as you can apply to fake prophecies):
- Direct Hit (Score 3): The prediction was specific and happened exactly as stated. Example: “You will sign paperwork regarding a property purchase.” (I signed a lease on an apartment on the exact day they specified, weirdly.)
- Vague Coincidence (Score 1): Something loosely related happened. Example: Prediction says “Unexpected emotional support.” I got a text from my mom. That counts as a 1.
- Total Flop (Score 0): They predicted something big—like a major relationship change—and nothing happened except I ordered a lot of takeout.
I spent about three full afternoons cross-referencing. I even had to call my old roommate about one specific prediction regarding a “faucet leak causing stress” just to verify I wasn’t making it up. (Weirdly, that one was true! Total fluke.)
What We Really Learned: The Brutal Truth
After all that digging, transcribing, and arguing with myself over whether “finding emotional support” really counted as a hit, the overall picture came into sharp focus. It wasn’t what I expected.
The grand total score was abysmal. Out of 36 predictions, I only tallied 5 Direct Hits. That’s less than 14%. The rest were mostly Flops (20 instances) or the lowest-scoring Vague Coincidence category (11 instances).
Here’s where it got interesting: The predictions about my career—moving to a new industry and gaining responsibility—were slightly better than average. Why? Because I was actively making those things happen! The general tone of the horoscopes was positive reinforcement for the changes I had already committed to. It wasn’t prophecy; it was just decent motivational speaking wrapped in star charts.
However, the predictions about love life and health? Total, utter, embarrassing garbage. Every month promised a “deep emotional connection” or “vibrant physical energy.” In reality, I was eating cereal for dinner and trying to remember the last time I saw the sun.
What I walked away with wasn’t proof of magic, but proof of human psychology. When I was scared and lost in 2016, those vague positive messages gave me a tiny sliver of hope. Now, looking back in 2024, seeing the hard data, I realize how much mental energy I probably wasted trying to make my life fit their narrative, instead of just accepting the messy reality I was living in. It’s a great reminder: Don’t let the stars write your story, especially when their accuracy rating is barely above 10%. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go delete that “Lies 2016” folder for good.
