Sometimes Your Destiny is Boring

Do this exercise to find focus — maybe your outcome will be more fun than mine

It was 2am on the east coast and I was participating in my favorite Christmastime tradition of staying up too late being anxious in my childhood bedroom when I scrolled past a New Moon Ritual for Getting in Touch With Your Destiny.

I was drawn to this witchy little practice because it promised ✨clarity✨ for the new year. 2025 was coming whether I liked it or not, and (I’m not being dramatic) 2024 proved to be such a flop, as the kids say, that I was getting nervous to ruin a second year in a row.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the original source of this exercise, but I also don’t remember all the intricate details either because impatience and laziness clouded my mind. (Ironic how I want to completely change my life but I also feel le tired.) There was definitely special parchment involved, and also a chalice. I didn’t have either of those things, so I used the last page of an old notebook and an orange plastic cup I used for paint water from 1993-2008.

Here’s a less accessory-laden version of it you can do from your own house or also in your childhood bedroom if you so happen to be there.

A Ritual for Finding Focus:

• Cut a paper into twelve pieces. Or do what I did and tear them because you can’t find scissors.

• On each one, write a project or theme that is in the running to be your main focus. Here are some I wrote down: pitch my next book, move back to LA, relaunch my podcast. These are all things I want to do, but part of the ritual is accepting you can’t give my full attention to all of your dreams. That’s, like, the opposite of focus.

• Put the options in your chalice. Maybe a cup you might’ve gotten in a Happy Meal when you were six. Chalices come in all shapes and sizes! Make sure the papers are folded in a way that you can’t read them.

• Every night, destroy one. Light them on fire, tear them up into confetti, flush them down the toilet — just get rid of them permanently so you can’t try for a redo.

• On the final night, open the remaining piece of paper. Here’s your answer. It might not be your first choice. If you’re like me, you will be disappointed you wrote that choice down at all. But you can’t go through your trash or local sewer looking for the other options. This is the one. This is what you were looking for.

When I read the last paper in my cup, I groaned.