If there’s anything that setting my fantasy football lineup has taught me, it’s that making your own choices can be incredibly painful.
The real world is no different. As much as we like to talk about our love of freedom and autonomy, living with the consequences of our own actions is often far too difficult. When someone else makes the decisions for us, it’s easy to point the finger when things go wrong. When we make a choice without much thought, we can shrug off failure as a byproduct of neglect. But when things go wrong with those big choices—the ones we agonize over night after night, the ones we vacillate on for weeks or months before finally committing to something, anything—who do we really have to blame but ourselves?
It’s no wonder that, for centuries, our ancestors turned to religion as a structuring force. It offered them an explanation for the things that went wrong, an explanation that seemed too absolute to doubt and too powerful to really resist. It’s also no wonder that once the Luciferian forces of “science” burned that safety blanket, we’ve turned to increasingly bizarre systems of meaning to fill the vacuum left in its absence. From reading the motion of the planets to asking ChatGPT what to choose, we’ve found a cornucopia of ways to absolve ourselves of responsibility for our decisions. Call it clinging to an illusory certainty in the midst of all the world’s chaos.
It’s easy to dismiss these methods out of hand as coping mechanisms. But maybe the mystics are onto something. Could there really be an order to it all? Something invisible to the human eye but accessible by other means, something waiting to be discovered beneath our feet? Only one way to find out. For a week, I decided to take a break from my life, placing my choices in the hands of a different teller of fate each day. And I rated them all for your convenience, just in case you ever decide to give up your free will, too.
Tuesday, Sept. 16: Magic 8 Ball
Talking to a Magic 8 Ball is like asking your wife what she wants for dinner—she’ll never give you a straight answer.
The first thing I do after opening my eyes is open my phone to the Magic 8 Ball website. As my nimble fingers dodge ads about “Superfoods To Prevent Bloating” and how “John Travolta Is Unrecognizable at His Age,” I press on the face of the Magic 8 Ball to ask if I should go to work that day.
“Outlook not so good.”
Should I get out of bed at all?
“Ask again later.”
This general uncertainty would come to be a motif throughout the day, with the Magic 8 Ball refusing to answer simple questions about doing homework or going to class. The only thing it seemed to be sure of was that I wasn’t allowed to eat—when asked whether I should eat breakfast or lunch, the Magic 8 Ball gave its first firm “No,” depriving me of much–needed energy for most of the day.
Even worse, while it eventually allowed me to show up for work, the Ball said that I wasn’t allowed to use public transportation for the day. Instead, I had to make the 45–minute trek each way between campus and City Hall. By 2 p.m., with an empty stomach and aching feet, I didn’t need to ask the Magic 8 Ball whether I should go to class or not—I didn’t have the calories in me to stay awake for it. Thankfully, the Ball decided to take pity on me when it mattered most, graciously allowing me to eat dinner.
Fate was a cruel master that day. I asked myself how anyone could possibly live like this. I had to remind myself that no one else is stupid enough to follow a Magic 8 Ball’s advice to the letter.
Rating: 2/10. Maybe if you’re on a diet.
Wednesday, Sept. 17: Horoscope
I’ve never really understood how to read a horoscope. Is it supposed to predict my day? Am I supposed to follow its vague proclamations as guiding principles? This confusion wasn’t cleared up by the fact that every horoscope I read (I’m a Gemini, by the way) seemed to offer contradictory advice. One site said to embrace the energy and enthusiasm I felt today to take on new challenges. Another said to keep cool and think carefully before I acted. A third made an ominous proclamation about “problems at my workplace.”
I knew the last one was bullshit—I don’t work Wednesdays. The contradiction between the other two, though, posed a problem for me. I ended up siding with the second fortune and taking it slow for the day, partially because that horoscope was the only one that offered any explanation for its words. And it was a pretty convincing explanation at that—apparently, my ruler Mercury was stirring emotions in my private fourth house. Predictably, the rest of the day was pretty blasé.
Rating: 5/10. Didn’t make my life worse, I guess.
Thursday, Sept. 18: Flipping a Coin
I scrounged around the house and went with the first piece of change I found—a North Dakota state quarter. The system was simple—heads I do something, tails I don’t. Almost immediately, the coin set itself apart from the Magic 8 Ball, allowing me to eat breakfast in the morning and take the trolley to work. Even better, when I went to lunch with the rest of my office, the coin allowed me to order a Diet Coke alongside my burger. For the first time this week, things were looking up for me.
Sure, I had to walk back home, but I was allowed to go to class, do some of my homework, and even do my laundry. I looked down once more at George Washington’s face, cast in copper and nickel. He almost seemed to be smiling.
Overall: 9/10. My first good day in a while—I needed this.
Friday, Sept. 19: Tarot
Nestled between ads for an “Am I Gay?” quiz and an article titled “Why Men Love Good Women” (debatable) was a set of three virtual cards for me to turn over, revealing my fate. The website promised that “This card was chosen by the Universe specially for you today.” From that sentence alone, my expectations were high: When was the last time a website was wrong? In quick succession, I drew the Four of Pentacles, symbolizing financial security; the Eight of Cups, warning me of a great change; and the Ace of Pentacles, telling me that I would slowly become aware of my contributions and value.
With my financial security guaranteed, I started making some purchases that I had been putting off for a while—a new pair of shoes (I only own one pair at a time), a fire escape ladder, groceries, you get it. It was only after the fact that I realized how great an amount this all came out to—a rather substantial reduction in my bank account. And I suppose that in some roundabout way, all of this made me become aware of the value of my labor.
Overall: 7/10. Predicted the day well enough. Probably a useful lesson to learn.
It’s easy to be contrarian and argue that mysticism is misunderstood or deserves to be taken a little more seriously. Sometimes, though, you just have to admit that the haters are right. While only one “superstition” actively made my life worse, none made me feel any better about the choices I made—after all, while the coin and the Magic 8 Ball nominally made the decisions I lived by, it was ultimately up to me to abide by their proclamations. With God out of the picture, maybe all we have is ourselves.
