“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cutting Your Losses

None of us will win every single battle throughout the course of our lives. There are times when we don’t have the strength to win, or we may have gotten ourselves involved in a situation that we were not meant to take part in. In such a situation, the first step is to admit that there is no way for you to come out on top. Admitting that you’ve lost can be excruciatingly painful, but it is the only way to limit the amount of losses that you will continue to take. It can be especially difficult if you’ve invested large amounts of time, resources, and emotion into the battle that you are about to let go of. However, recognizing the fact that you were not meant to win in the surest way to defend what you have left and emerge with peace of mind knowing that you’ve tried your hardest. You may be dealing with such a situation; despite your constant efforts, it feels as though there is no way for you to fight your way to victory. It seems like no matter what you do, nothing turns out in your favor. This may be due to a variety of reasons: you may not be qualified to handle the situation, the restrictions that you’ve placed on yourself may be preventing you from performing to the best of your ability, or the struggle may truly be one that is unbeatable. Now is the time to let this struggle go and move on with your life, dedicating your time and energy to far more important matters. This loss does not define you; instead, consider this as a crucial lesson that will teach you how to move forward into the future. Now that you understand your limitations, you will have a much clearer vision of how you can make yourself stronger so that one day, battles that are similar to this don’t even require a second thought.

Not all relationships will last forever. The people in our lives come and go, and when we harbor strong feelings for someone, it can be hard to accept the fact that their chapter is coming to a close. This is especially difficult for romantic relationships; after all, nobody initiates a true relationship with the intent that it will one day fail. Oftentimes, struggling to keep a dying romance together is far more painful than moving on and letting go. However, we can never truly achieve happiness if we continue to cling to the things that bring us the most grief. An important figure in your romantic life is beginning to fade away, but you aren’t ready to let go. Perhaps you have been scrambling to cling to the final shred of hope that your relationship will survive past a recent catastrophe. Or maybe someone that you’ve had feelings has not been reciprocating, and has moved on to form new romantic relationships with different partners. You’re watching them leave, but it’s difficult to imagine an existence that doesn’t revolve around them; because of this fear of loneliness and change, as well as sentimentality for the past, you’ve done everything possible to prolong their stay in your life. However, this is only making the entire situation infinitely more difficult on yourself. If they don’t want to be with you, then there is nothing that you can do to change their feelings. The best thing you can do is let them go and look towards a future without them. It may be incredibly difficult to let your feelings for them slowly fade away, and at times, it may even feel impossible. When it feels as though you don’t have the strength to live without them, remember that time heals all wounds. Your capacity to love will return, and you will find someone far more worthy to spend your affections on.

SWORDS. NINE.

One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.

Divinatory Meanings: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair.

Reversed: Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.

More often than not, your work is going to be one of the greatest challenges in your life. Due to the amount of time it takes out of your day, the demands placed on you to perform, and the social struggles that come with interacting with coworkers, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that you are constantly struggling in an uphill battle. In many cases, the solution to such an issue is to remember that this is something that you can overcome. By putting in endless amounts of hard work and dedication to finding a position that does not cause such friction in your life, many will be able to find a comfortable state of peace with their profession and its demands. However, this does not mean that you should simply accept any abuse that comes your way; this “grin and bear it” mentality is not universal. You may be in a such a dead-end situation with work that anything feels better than staying in your current position. Perhaps you are stuck in a job with little to no upward mobility that treats you terribly and doesn’t respect your rights as a human being, let alone as an employee. On the other hand, if you are currently searching for a job, you may be stuck in a seemingly unbreakable cycle of rejection from potential employers. While you may have been making some sort of effort to improve your situation up until this point, you have not yet seen any significant change. Now is the time to reevaluate your methodology and accept that your current tactics aren’t working. You may need to entirely reinvent your approach to the situation in order to obtain your desired results; however, in doing so, it is important to remember that this will not automatically result in a solution to your problems. Reach out to others, or do some research online, to find new ways to deal with your current situation. Perhaps you have an ex-coworker that left the company due to similar reasons, but found much more agreeable employment elsewhere; if you are interested in applying to their new company, can they put in a good recommendation for you? Or maybe you’ve been limiting your job search tactics to a simple Google search, and haven’t been using any other tactics to network with professionals in your desired field. What can you do to make yourself stand out from other candidates? Use your resources to come up with new ways to tackle your current situation, instead of simply pushing forward with your current techniques and crippling yourself with an even worse state discontent.

In light of a failure, it can be easy to let yourself wallow in a state of depression and self-pity. When The 9 of Swords appears in the reversed position, it may be a sign that you’ve let recent disappointments control your emotional state, making it difficult for you to move on and enjoy the positive things that have graced your life since then. In order to truly move on and free yourself from the negative mindset that you’ve been suffering with lately, it is time to accept this failure and learn to grow stronger from it. It didn’t kill you. You are still here, and there is such a wealth of wonderful things just past your finger tips. All you have to do is find the strength to stand back up and walk into the sunshine that illuminates the next steps of your life. Great things are on the horizon for you, and there is no room for depression and negativity amongst the successes that the future holds for you.