Man, 2019. February. What a mess that was. You know how it is when you’re standing at a crossroads, totally stressed, and you start grasping at anything that looks like a map? Well, I grabbed an online career horoscope. Specifically, the one for Virgo, February 2019. I wasn’t usually into that stuff, but my work situation was completely upside down, and I figured, what the hell, let’s see what the stars say. I decided right then I’d treat it like a serious experiment. I was going to log everything the prediction claimed and then cross-reference it with what actually went down.
Setting Up The Tracker: The Great February Log
I scrambled together a quick spreadsheet—nothing fancy, just three columns: Date, Prediction Event, and Reality Check. I found this one big prediction for the month that really stuck out. The prediction claimed that February would be the month I had to cut ties with a long-standing collaborator or partner, leading to a major financial decision that would ultimately free up my resources for a solitary, research-heavy project starting in March. Sounded dramatic, right?
I was working on this huge contract with a client—let’s call them “Big Fish.” We’d been together for five years, stable money, but they were driving me nuts with micromanagement. I knew I needed to walk away, but the safety net felt too comfortable. So, I started logging.
The first two weeks of February were dead quiet. Prediction: FALSE. I logged “No conflict initiated,” “Big Fish is still Big Fish,” “Financial status: Stagnant.” I was starting to think the whole experiment was a bust. I even wrote in the comments section on Feb 10th: “This is absolute garbage. Should have just worked instead.”
The Reality Check Hits Hard
Then, life decided to stop messing around. It wasn’t the stars making the move; it was pure, unadulterated reality. I pulled the old spreadsheet out the other day, and seeing those entries brought back the total chaos.
Around February 16th, Big Fish finally crossed the line. They didn’t just ask for another revision; they tried to change the payment terms mid-contract, retroactive to January. That’s when I blew up. I didn’t gracefully “cut ties” like the prediction suggested; I fired them. I wrote a nasty email—I mean, a truly scorched-earth email—and hit send. I logged that as: Prediction Event: Partnership Ended.
But the prediction didn’t capture the actual fallout. That meant three weeks of zero income instantly. My wife, bless her heart, was handling everything, but the pressure was immense. We had just signed the papers on the new house, and suddenly the mortgage deposit looked like a joke. I remember literally crawling through the paperwork trying to figure out how many weeks we could survive on savings alone. That week was pure panic.
I immediately had to pivot. I couldn’t afford to sit around. My focus shifted instantly from client management (collaboration) to selling off assets—old equipment, side projects—to cover the gap. I was trying to raise cash fast. This was the “major financial decision,” but it wasn’t some calm investment; it was desperation.
- Feb 18: Fired Big Fish. Logged: Reality Check: Partnership terminated, but initiated by anger, not strategy.
- Feb 20-25: Started selling off servers and old design contracts. Logged: Financial decision made—forced liquidity to survive.
- Feb 27: Started digging into the long-delayed research project because I literally had no other paying work. Logged: Shift to solitary, research-heavy work.
The Verdict: Was the Horoscope Right?
When I finally got to the end of the month and sat down to verify the outcome against the prediction, the answer was messy. The prediction was technically… correct, but for all the wrong reasons.
It predicted:
- Ending a collaboration. (Yes, happened.)
- Major financial decision. (Yes, happened.)
- Shift to solitary research. (Yes, happened.)
But the vibe was totally off. The horoscope made it sound like I would be making these bold, calculated moves guided by some cosmic wisdom. The reality was that I was pushed off a cliff by a terrible client, and every single “predicted step” was just a desperate attempt to catch myself before I hit the bottom. It wasn’t foresight; it was reactive survival.
I realized then that while the prediction outlined the events, it missed the most crucial part: the agency. I didn’t choose to end the collaboration because it was time; I ended it because they stole from me. I didn’t choose the solitary research project because I was inspired; I chose it because I had no client calls and needed to look productive while I figured out where my next check was coming from.
The lesson I pulled from that whole chaotic experiment, and honestly why I dug out the log to share today, wasn’t about the stars. It was that when things are that tense, the external prediction will often just mirror the internal anxiety you already have. You’re waiting for the trigger, and when the trigger finally goes off—for whatever real, messy reason—you mistakenly attribute the outcome to the prediction.
I still have that spreadsheet, just archived deep in my cloud storage. It serves as a great reminder: Don’t wait for the stars to tell you to make a change. Sometimes the universe is just going to kick the chair out from under you, and you just have to log the damage and start rebuilding.
