The Day a Horoscope Forced Me to Act
Man, 2017 felt like five years packed into one awful year. I was totally stalled. I was grinding away in this mid-level management gig, supply chain stuff, and I just hated every minute of it. I was running spreadsheets, chasing orders, dealing with the same complaints every day. I felt like I was running on a treadmill that was stuck on the lowest speed. I knew I needed to switch jobs, but every time I sat down to look at job boards, I just froze up. Analysis paralysis, you know? I’d look at the openings, get overwhelmed, close the laptop, and promise myself I’d start fresh tomorrow. I never did.
I must have been truly desperate because I started doing things I never normally did. Like, reading my horoscope. I’m a Virgo, classic over-thinker. It was early November 2017, probably around the 5th. I was waiting for a delayed flight and just messing around on my phone. I clicked on some random “Career Insight for November” article. The advice wasn’t vague like usual. It didn’t just say, “The stars align for promotion.” No, this specific November 2017 Virgo career horoscope gave me two surprisingly actionable, totally random instructions.
It demanded two things:
- First, it commanded me to immediately contact an old acquaintance—someone I hadn’t spoken to in at least six years, and who worked in a field totally different from mine.
- Second, it insisted I spend at least 15 hours learning a specific, entry-level digital skill—it actually named SEO and basic content writing.
I literally laughed out loud. What kind of career advice is “call Dave from college who works in music production” and “learn how to write blogs”? But I was so stuck, I figured, what the heck? Let’s treat it like a stupid challenge. I decided to run the experiment. I told myself if it failed, I could blame the stars, not my effort.
Executing the Random Instructions
I started with the contact part. I scrolled through my dusty Facebook connections and finally found Mark. We played basketball together years ago. He was now running communications for a small non-profit focused on environmental law. Totally opposite from moving widgets around a warehouse.
I drafted a message. It took me 45 minutes to sound casual and not desperate. I hit send, asking if he was up for a coffee chat. Surprisingly, he replied instantly. We met up two days later. I explained my situation, how bored I was, how I needed a change. He listened, nodded, and then mentioned that their comms team was drowning in data. They needed someone structured, someone who could handle spreadsheets and project management, but who also had a basic grip on content deadlines. I perked up. This was 80% my current skill set, plus that weird 20% the horoscope mentioned.
While Mark and I were figuring out coffee plans, I jumped onto the second instruction. I found a cheap Udemy course on SEO fundamentals. I forced myself to sit down every night for 90 minutes. I wrestled with keywords and meta descriptions. My brain felt like mush, but I kept pushing because I had this arbitrary 15-hour clock ticking in my head, a deadline the silly horoscope had imposed.
By the third week of November, I had successfully completed the course and Mark had offered me a part-time contract to help them organize their database and manage their content calendar. It was a weird hybrid role. They needed my management structure, but they wanted me to understand enough about SEO to communicate effectively with their web team.
The Unexpected Pivot and the Realization
I accepted the contract and started phasing out of my old job. By mid-December 2017, I marched into my boss’s office and handed in my resignation. He looked baffled. “You’re leaving logistics for… environmental content?” Yep. I did it. I walked away from the stale safety of my old role into something totally uncertain, paying less upfront, but infinitely more interesting. I was finally using my organizational skills to build something new, and I had this odd, new side-skill of basic digital marketing thanks to a completely random instruction.
Did the Virgo career horoscope predict my future? Of course not. But here is the genuine insight I extracted from this ridiculous experiment. The magic wasn’t in the stars; it was in the specificity. For months, I had been paralyzed by the sheer scope of “find a better job.” The horoscope broke down that impossible goal into two tiny, achievable actions: “Call Mark” and “Learn SEO.”
I realized that I just needed someone, or something, to tell me exactly what step to take first. It didn’t matter that the instruction came from a dubious astrological prediction; what mattered was that I committed to those precise actions. That act of commitment created momentum. That momentum pushed me right out the door and onto a completely different career path. I’m still in the non-profit sector now, five years later, and I’m way happier.
So, if you’re asking if the November 2017 Virgo horoscope helped my job path? I’d say it didn’t help—it forced it. It gave me the map when I couldn’t even manage to lace up my shoes. Sometimes, you just need a nonsensical, external push to start moving, even if the source is total junk. Thanks, stars, for being specific enough for my desperate brain to latch onto.
