Last Month Was a Total Grind, Man
I’m telling you, I was stuck. Like seriously stuck in a rut back then. It was maybe a month ago, I’d just wrapped up this huge project for the client—one I literally poured my guts into—and they came back with a big ‘meh.’ Said it missed the mark, which, whatever, fine. But the whole thing just deflated me. Completely.
I started questioning everything. Should I bail on this whole freelance thing? Should I go back to that old corporate gig? I was sleeping terribly, staring at the ceiling and just running through every bad decision I’d ever made since I first started working for myself. It was the absolute pits. That’s when my mind, for whatever crazy reason, drifted back to 2019. That was a serious turning point, but I always felt like I whiffed on something big that year, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
My wife, bless her heart, she was the one who actually laughed and said, “Hey, you’re a Virgo. You used to check that weird astro site every month. Why don’t you dig up the May 2019 one and see what you were supposed to be doing?” I mean, she was joking, but I was desperate enough to try anything that wasn’t more endless self-pity.
The Messy Process of Digging Up Old Digital Dirt
So, I started digging. Man, what a trek. I had to log into this ancient email I hadn’t touched since, like, 2020. I remembered signing up for a specific newsletter back then because this one blogger really broke down the career stuff without the usual fluff. Took me an hour just to reset the password. Once I was in, I searched “Virgo Career May 2019.” The result was right there, buried beneath a thousand spam emails and expired coupons. I opened the thing up. It was ugly, plain text, but the words jumped out at me.
The core message for that month was all about pushing through an uncomfortable, short-term disagreement to secure a long-term resource. It basically screamed:
- “Do not fear the initial friction with a long-standing partner. The fight is necessary to clarify the value proposition.”
- “You will be presented with a partnership that seems too volatile or high-risk. Take the risk before the 25th.”
- “If you wait until June, the opportunity will have already solidified without you.”
I read it, and my stomach dropped. I physically just slumped back in my chair. It wasn’t just a generic reading; it was a blueprint for the mess I made five years ago. This wasn’t some cosmic accident; it was a map I threw in the trash.
My Actual May 2019 Mess-Up
See, I was working with this business development guy back then. He was pretty old-school, very rigid. I had this idea for a new product line—something that would totally expand our customer base but required a massive, aggressive pivot in our sales strategy. He hated it. Hated the risk, hated the new tech. We had a massive, nasty disagreement right around May 15th, just like the reading hinted at. I remember it clearly.
I was so focused on being practical and avoiding the fight—classic Virgo move, right?—that I completely backed down. I figured, okay, I’ll compromise, save the relationship, and pitch the idea again later when things cool off. I let him win the argument, and I shelved the whole thing.
Then, here’s the kicker, the part that only hit me when I re-read that old email: about three weeks later, right after the 25th, that business development guy left the company. He took my exact product concept to a rival startup, just slightly repackaged it, and they launched it in August. That pivot I was too scared to fight for? That “too volatile” high-risk move? It turned into their main moneymaker, pulling in millions within the first year. I watched it happen from the sidelines. I always knew I blew it, but I never knew exactly when or why I hesitated.
The Damn Thing Was Literally Right There
That reading wasn’t telling me to buy a lottery ticket or move to Fiji. It was simply telling me: “Don’t be such a perfectionist. Fight the damn fight now, even if it feels wrong, because the opportunity has a clock on it.” I focused on the internal friction, the comfort of the partnership, and completely missed the window to seize the outside resource. That was the whole ballgame. I was so wrapped up in making the process perfect that I let the result slip away.
Now, five years later, staring at this old text, I finally get it. The thing I was beating myself up over last month—that feeling of being stuck—it was rooted right back here in May 2019. It wasn’t about the client who said ‘meh’; it was about that old habit of backing down when the moment demands aggression. The lesson wasn’t about checking the stars every day; it was about realizing that sometimes, the universe just lays out the critical moment, and if you miss the specific timing, you’ll be feeling the consequences five years down the road. I felt the regret then, and I’m still feeling the ripple effect now. But at least now I know exactly what I missed, and it’s not happening again.
