The Day I Dug Up My Own Professional Ghost Story
Man, sometimes you just trip over your own past and it gives you a solid slap on the back of the head. That’s exactly what happened this week. I was trying to finally clear out this dusty old external hard drive—the one I’ve been lugging around since before I started this blog, full of abandoned projects and old life residue.
I started dragging massive folders into the trash bin, just blindly dumping stuff. Then I saw it: a tiny PDF file, titled something cryptic like “VGO_6_15_*.” I stopped the delete process. I clicked it open. And that’s when this whole ridiculous flashback started. It was the complete, archived reading for my Virgo Career Horoscope from June 2015.
I remember saving this thing. Why? Because back then, I was mentally drowning, stuck in this massive, soul-sucking corporate job. The money was good, yeah, but the work was meaningless. Every day felt like I was just punching a clock until the grave. I was desperate for a sign, any sign, that I should jump ship. I was scanning everything from tea leaves to, apparently, internet horoscopes, searching for permission to quit. I was paralyzed by the comfort of the paycheck.
The State of Play in June 2015: Complacency and Dread
Let me paint the picture. In June 2015, I was running operations for a mid-level team at a big tech firm. We had just finished a huge, stressful product launch. I thought I was locked in for another five years. Everything was structured, predictable, and frankly, killing my creativity. I had signed a contract that felt ironclad. I remember telling my spouse, “Look, this is safe. We’ll hate it, but we’ll be solvent.” That feeling of ‘safe’ was what I was paying for.
When I opened that PDF this week, the memory came rushing back. I must have been so stressed that day I had saved the reading word-for-word. I started reading the forecast text from eight years ago, comparing it immediately to what actually unfolded.
- The Prediction: “A key partnership you rely on will suddenly dissolve, leaving you exposed. Expect an unplanned and immediate pivot away from established security. The path you thought was paved will vanish, forcing you to build new foundations from scratch.”
- My Reaction Then: I remember laughing it off. “Dissolve? My partnerships are solid. Paved path vanishing? Ridiculous. This is the most stable job I’ve ever had.”
The Immediate Aftermath: The Prediction Slaps Back
What did I do immediately after reading that back in 2015? Absolutely nothing. I closed the browser, poured a cup of coffee, and tried to forget I’d wasted fifteen minutes reading astrological nonsense. I kept working, kept complaining, kept collecting the paycheck.
But the universe doesn’t wait for you to feel ready. The timeline went exactly like this:
A month later, in July 2015, the “key partnership” dissolved. Not a person, but an entire client sector we were dependent on evaporated overnight due to a regulatory change. We lost 40% of our workload instantly. Panic set in.
By September 2015, the “established security” vanished. Management announced a complete global restructuring. My entire team was dissolved, and they offered me a lateral transfer into a role that was basically corporate babysitting in a satellite office three states away. It was a clear shove toward the exit door.
I stared at that transfer paper. It was my moment of truth. Was I going to accept the terrible new path just because it was ‘safe’? Remembering that stupid horoscope, suddenly, the prediction didn’t seem so ridiculous. It felt like a warning that I had missed.
I made the pivot. I refused the transfer. I quit that corporate gig cold turkey in October 2015, walking away from the stability everyone else envied. People thought I was insane. I had zero backup plan.
Building New Foundations, Brick by Chaotic Brick
The horoscope said I’d be forced to “build new foundations from scratch.” Man, that was the truest part of the whole reading. I spent the next year scrambling. I took small, weird consulting jobs—anything that paid the rent. I was teaching myself new skills, project management for tiny operations, setting up simple systems for folks who couldn’t afford big firms. It was chaos, but it was honest work.
And here’s the key realization, the thing that connects the 2015 dread to this 2023 blog post: I started meticulously documenting everything I was learning during that messy transition. Every system I built, every mistake I made, every shortcut I discovered—I wrote it all down. I was creating SOPs for myself, just to stay organized in the chaos. That practice of detailed, practical documentation is literally the foundation of this blog today.
If I hadn’t been forced to jump ship, if that corporate job had stayed “safe,” I would still be there, miserable, and this whole sharing endeavor, this community, none of it would exist. That silly little June 2015 horoscope didn’t cause the change, but when I look back now, I realize it prepared me to accept the chaos and commit to the hard path when the time came. It’s funny how sometimes the least scientific things can accidentally be the most accurate mirrors of reality. I’m glad I saw that old review. It reminds me why I started sharing my actual practice records in the first place—because life is usually messier and more interesting than the five-year plan you think you have.
