Why I Started Looking Back at July 2017
Things are a complete and total mess right now. Career-wise, I feel like I’m stuck driving a car with one flat tire. It’s slow and it rattles your teeth. I was having a couple of beers with my buddy, Mark, last week, and I was whining about how I keep missing the big chance. How I work hard but someone else always gets the good stuff. Mark, he just laughed and said, “Dude, go look up your July 2017. Remember that weird cosmic career reading you paid for? You never followed any of it.”
I hadn’t thought about that ridiculous thing in years. I’m a Virgo, right? And back then, I was feeling all spiritual and decided to drop some cash on a deep-dive, month-by-month prediction specifically for career growth. I thought it was hilarious nonsense at the time, but for some reason, I actually
kept the notes.
That conversation with Mark really got under my skin. I couldn’t shake it. So, I
decided to prove him wrong
and see what I supposedly missed.
The Archaeology of My Own Mess
The first thing I had to
do was locate the artifacts.
My desk is perpetually buried under paper, but I remembered scribbling those notes in a specific, horrible yellow spiral notebook I used just for “woo-woo stuff.” I spent two hours
digging through the garage boxes
that were supposed to be organized months ago. I
tore through four different plastic bins
full of old tax returns and junk mail before I finally
snagged the notebook
under a pile of Christmas decorations.
It was worse than I remembered. My handwriting was atrocious. The whole thing looked like a lunatic wrote it. But there it was, the page labeled: “VIRGO CAREER JULY 2017 – TOP WINDOWS.”
I
opened up my old digital calendars
next. I run everything through Google Calendar, so I had to
fire up the old laptop
that hadn’t seen daylight in a year and
sync the damn thing.
I needed to
cross-reference the cryptic notebook entries
with what I was actually doing in that exact week. This was the real work, piecing together the timeline of my own failure.
What the Notes Said Versus What I Did
The notebook had four main bullet points for that month. They weren’t super specific, just behavioral suggestions. I
wrote them down like this
in a much cleaner format so I could really stare at them:
- Window 1 (July 5th-8th): Seek out a conversation with the quiet one who reviews the budgets. A proposal is forming behind closed doors.
- Window 2 (July 12th-15th): The opportunity is not money-related yet. It’s a skill. Invest three evenings this week in a difficult new skill that feels stupid right now.
- Window 3 (July 19th-22nd): Do not stay home. Go to the informal gathering. This is where a major resource will be shared.
- Window 4 (July 26th-29th): Reject the easy path. Present the controversial idea that is still in your head.
Then I
matched that list to my actual history
from the old calendar. The results were brutal. I
literally messed up all four.
For Window 1, I
saw I had an all-day meeting on July 6th
with the dude who fit the description, Mr. Henderson. What did I do? I
skipped the after-meeting mixer
because I wanted to beat traffic. I just waved and left. Henderson was the guy who later created the entire new product line that made the company millions.
For Window 2, the “difficult new skill.” I
checked my history and those three evenings
I dedicated to training—I didn’t. I
logged three straight nights of watching reruns
of some dumb show and ordering takeout. I remember thinking, “I’m too tired for new skills.”
Window 3, “the informal gathering.” My calendar
showed a BBQ at a colleague’s house
on the 21st. The weather was perfect. I
cancelled last minute
because I wanted to stay home and read a book. Turns out, the colleague’s brother-in-law was looking for a partner for a killer side project—the one I’m currently kicking myself for not having started years ago.
Window 4, the controversial idea. I had
written a crazy long internal email draft
for a massive restructuring proposal. My calendar
reminded me that I got scared
and
hit the ‘delete’ key instead of ‘send’
on the 27th. Just chickened out entirely.
The Bitter End Result
I
stared at that page for twenty minutes
before I finally
slammed the notebook shut.
It wasn’t the stars being wrong. It wasn’t some cosmic conspiracy. It wasn’t that I didn’t get the chances—I
was given four clear directions
on a silver platter, and I
actively chose the path of least resistance
every single time. I
let laziness win
when the biggest doors were opening.
That feeling of being stuck now? That flat tire? It
didn’t just appear.
It
started flatlining back in July 2017
when I decided traffic was more important than talking to a key player, or that reruns were better than a new skill. I
created this current mess myself
through a series of small, idiotic choices, and it’s nobody else’s damn fault.
Now, I
have to work twice as hard
just to get back to where I could have been effortlessly five years ago. I
wasted five years
because I
couldn’t be bothered for one single month.
I
tossed the yellow notebook in the trash bin
because I don’t need any more reminders. I know exactly what I need to do next, and it doesn’t involve waiting for a calendar window; it involves
just doing the damn thing right now.
