I pulled the Temperance card today. Straight up. It was supposed to be a love-advice draw for a guy who was stressing about his six-month relationship feeling too much like a job. I drew the card, looked at that angel standing there, pouring water between the two cups, and I just sighed because I knew instantly what the problem was.
Most folks, when they see Temperance, they think it means, “Hey, just be calm, everything will naturally balance out.” That’s the textbook crap. The real, lived-in meaning is way messier and way more difficult. It means you have to keep moving the water, keep adjusting the flow, and frankly, it means you’re going to spill some, maybe even make a muddy mess for a while until you figure out the right rhythm.
The Messy Start: Seeing the Card, Ignoring the Advice
Back when I first started really paying attention to these things, I thought I got Temperance. I read the books, I knew the keywords: Patience, Harmony, Blending. I kept telling people this simple advice, like it was easy. My sister, she was dating this musician guy, totally different worlds. I told her, “Just find a balance, sis!” What an idiot I was. They didn’t balance. They crashed. She wanted commitment, he wanted freedom. Trying to mix those two is like trying to blend oil and water with a spoon. You get a temporary emulsion, but it separates fast.
My actual practice now, when I draw this card for a partnership, is to stop talking about ‘blending’ and start talking about ‘dosage.’ You have to figure out exactly how much of your personality, your needs, your schedule you can pour in before the whole thing gets ruined. And the ratio changes every single week.
- First Step: The Inventory. You make a list. Not a nice one. A rough one. What do you refuse to change? What does your partner refuse to change? You call a spade a spade.
- Second Step: The Pour. You pour a little bit of your energy into their thing. I mean literally. If they need quiet, you shut up. If they need social time, you drag yourself out, even if you hate it. You do this until it hurts slightly. That’s your limit.
- Third Step: The Wait. Then you wait and see if they match that effort. If they don’t return the favor, you know the temperature is off. You stop pouring.
I did all this for other people for years, but I didn’t take my own medicine. That’s how I figured out the harsh reality of this card.
The Real-Life Lesson: Why I Now Preach “Dosage”
I spout all this advice now, all this talk about ‘lasting partnerships’ and ‘temperance,’ but why do I know it works? Because I torpedoed the best thing I ever had by being completely and utterly impatient—the exact opposite of Temperance.
This was maybe five years back. I was running hard at my startup. Everything was a sprint. My mind worked at 100 miles an hour. My girlfriend at the time, she was a kindergarten teacher—patient, measured, slow to anger. We were oil and water from day one, but we loved each other. Temperance was screaming at me every day, and I ignored it.
I kept pushing my timeline on her. I demanded decisions, I insisted we move faster, I yelled when she needed time to think things through. I treated her like a coding task—just execute and move on. I ruined every calm moment we had. I thought my pace was better. I thought my fire would heat up her slow water.
It didn’t.
One Tuesday morning, I woke up and she was gone. Just a note on the counter. She packed her stuff quietly while I was sleeping and left. She said she couldn’t live with the constant, grinding imbalance. I called her, I emailed her, I drove to her sister’s place. She blocked me. Completely erased me. She used her Temperance to cut off the unhealthy flow, and I was left standing there, completely flooded and drowning in the consequences of my own impatience.
I spent the next six months in a total fog. I couldn’t focus on work. I couldn’t even look at a deck of cards. My business hit a wall. It was humiliating and painful. I had to stop, totally stop, and relearn what Temperance actually was. It wasn’t patience; it was the willingness to move slowly when my whole body wanted to sprint. It was the willingness to pour 10% of my effort into something that felt like it only needed 50%, just to see what happened. I had to stop demanding and start measuring.
The Simple Advice That Actually Works
So, when I drew that card today for the worried guy, my advice was simple, no fluff. It comes directly from that messy breakup. Forget ‘balance.’ Focus on ‘flow rate.’
Here’s the deal: Stop trying to make your two lives instantly merge. They won’t. You need to look at your partner like you look at the stream of water coming out of a faucet—is it trickling? Is it a firehose? Your job, your only job, is to reach out and adjust the tap ever so slightly, and then you have to stand back and wait to see what that change does to the temperature of the whole room. Temperance isn’t magic; it’s manual labor, done slowly, every damn day.
