Man, let me tell you about the time I actually got deep into the I Ching, the Book of Changes, and specifically Hexagram 54. I never really thought I’d be casting coins or whatever, but life throws you a curveball, you know? This wasn’t some academic exercise for a blog post; this was me hitting a serious wall with my side hustle, this whole new software thing I’d been trying to build. I spent nearly eight months banging my head against the keyboard, trying to force it to work.
I jumped into the deep end way too fast. I had this great idea—I thought it was pure genius—for a niche analytics tool. So I coded for months, all the late nights, coffee fumes, the whole cliché. But every time I demoed it, or tried to get a partnership going, things just felt… off. Like the foundation was shaky, but I couldn’t figure out which floor was sagging. I was throwing good money after bad, and the whole thing was starting to look less like a viable business and more like a hobby I was secretly depressed about. I was chasing investors, chasing users, chasing stability, and it all just kept slipping away.
I finally hit rock bottom one Tuesday afternoon. I’d just had a ridiculously embarrassing call with a potential collaborator. They kept referring to my product as a “proof of concept” for their main idea. I felt like I was their eager, slightly desperate intern, even though this was my brainchild. I slammed my laptop shut and actually walked away from the desk. I was stewing. I felt like a side character in my own movie, which is a terrible feeling.
The Moment I Decided to Cast the Coins
I suddenly remembered an old friend from college, Mark. That guy was always reading something esoteric, always talking about Eastern philosophy. He’d once tried to teach me how to throw the coins for the I Ching like a decade ago, but I just laughed it off. Now, desperate, I dug up his number and just texted him a frantic, caps-locked message: “I Ching. Help. Now.”
He called me back immediately. He wasn’t pushy; he just calmly walked me through the process. I didn’t have the nice, antique Chinese coins you see in movies. I just dumped out the change from the little ceramic bowl on my dresser—a couple of quarters, a bunch of dimes, and some crusty pennies. It felt kind of silly, but hey, I was already desperate enough to talk to Mark about ancient divination, so what did I have to lose?
I closed my eyes, focused on the question—”Why is my project unstable?”—and went through the routine: six throws, documenting the lines as Mark told me to. It took about twenty minutes, all told, and I ended up with Hexagram 54, the one called Gūi Mèi, or The Marrying Maiden. And it had no changing lines. It was a solid, straight answer.
The Shock of Hexagram 54
Mark emailed me a quick breakdown—no links, just the raw text—and I sat there and read it, completely stunned. I didn’t need to look up any fancy commentaries. The core message was so blunt it felt like a punch to the gut. The Marrying Maiden, or sometimes called The Younger Sister Marries. The point is, she’s not supposed to be the primary wife. She’s supposed to follow, she’s secondary, she’s eager but often out of place. It suggests a union that is improper, premature, or subordinate. Things are out of order, like putting the cart before the horse.
I immediately saw the parallel with my analytics tool. I had acted like the eager, younger sister! I was so excited to get the product out that I skipped the proper courtship (market research, formal partnerships, setting up the right legal structure) and just pushed the “marriage” (the launch). I had built this whole complex system before I even had the proper channels to market it or the partnerships to stabilize it. I was trying to marry up without being in the position to be the primary partner. I was setting myself up to be perpetually subordinate, eternally chasing the stability I hadn’t secured at the start.
My project was unstable because I made it unstable from the first line of code. It wasn’t the code itself, it was the structural error in its very existence.
The Practical Steps I Took Next
I didn’t quit the project. That’s the key. I reversed course. I scrapped the aggressive launch plan. I stopped chasing venture capital. Instead, I focused on these immediate steps, basically putting the hexagram’s warning into reverse action:
- I took a full week off just to stop coding and start talking to potential users without selling anything. I called it “proper market research.”
- I redrafted the entire business model to prioritize stability and a small, secure initial client base, not a massive, flashy launch.
- I found a genuine co-founder—someone who was interested in the foundation and the structure, not just the shiny app. This was the “proper union” I had skipped.
That hexagram 54 didn’t give me the code fix. It gave me the framework fix. It forced me to stare at the structural flaw I had introduced through my own eagerness and impatience. Seeing that phrase, “The Marrying Maiden,” felt like a direct, ancient warning about what happens when you’re desperate to start something but don’t respect the necessary order and position. It wasn’t magic; it was an incredibly old, simple mirror that just showed me my own mistake. The project is still going, by the way. Slower, much more stable, and definitely not feeling like a side hustle anymore. It’s a foundational partnership now, which is exactly the opposite of that Marrying Maiden energy. I won’t be rushing anything major again, I can promise you that.
