A Complicated Relationship With The Fool

Me and The Fool? It's complicated...

When I think of myself as The Fool, I don’t see a child-like frivolity. I don’t see a free spirit following their basic instincts or starting something new and exciting. What I see - and maybe this is my pessimistic nature shining through - is my failures or more precisely, my foolish mistakes.

 It's a bit like watching a bull in a china shop, that’s what I imagine when I embody The Fool. I am the bull and the world is my china shop. I can see the mistakes I’m making but I appear to be powerless to stop them. I’d love to have the relief and excitement that many people get when The Fool appears in their readings, but for me, all I can think is “Oh god, what have I done now?”. 

When I was in my early 20’s I had a job I loved. I loved the people I worked with, bar one, and I loved the work itself. It was in customer services, retail to be exact so it came with its challenges. During this same time, I was struggling a lot with my mental health. I would suffer from mood swings and anger issues, sudden bursts of tears and regular heart palpitations. Personally, I wasn’t in my prime, let’s just say that. 

One fateful and particularly testing day I made the mistake of venting my frustrations on Facebook. This was back when every thought that popped into my head would make its way into a social media status. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote but I know it was something along the lines of “If someone asks me for X one more time I’m going to headbut them”. To me, it was a flippant expression of frustration. However, I was friends with some of the more senior staff on Facebook and when my next shift rolled around I was dragged into the office. 

As you can imagine, they were not too happy. To this day though, I feel like the punishment was a little more dramatic than the actual crime. I didn’t get fired, but they did suspend me on the spot awaiting a tribunal - you’d think I worked for MI5 - the worst part though was that they wouldn’t let me simply grab my things and leave, I had to be escorted off the premises in front of all of my friends and colleagues. 

I’d worked that job for over four years without so much as a stern word, but all of a sudden I was a danger to the customers. And yes, those are the words they used. The humiliation of being walked out of the building was what hurt the most. I didn’t necessarily feel I’d been wrongfully accused because the proof was right there in black and white. I absolutely should have been punished for it. 

My mind wanders to this moment when I’m faced with The Fool. It reminds me how one stupid decision can offer terrible consequences. How naivety and feeling invincible can actually cause you to run head-long off that cliff edge with a smile on your face. 

I’m always working on ways to expand on these associations, so I frequently remind myself that this moment, as embarrassing as it was, actually set me on the path to where I am today. After that incident they wanted me to have the tribunal, which was effectively you sat in a room with the managers while you say how sorry you are over and over again. I’ve always had an issue with being made to feel small or foolish so I nicely told them to stick their job up their behind and I left. 

At the same time, I was also working at a marketing internship, initially unpaid but recently upped to minimum wage. This meant that I could put my ego first and leave my job with my head held - sort of - high. I often see this as the flip side of that Fool experience. That internship didn’t last a long time, but it did set me up for a much better job, which then led to another great job and then another. It was the first wrung on the ladder that I continue to climb. I suppose, that decision I made as to whether to stay and grovel for my job, or leave and refuse to be humiliated any further was The Fool at work.

That was my leap of faith. To leave a situation that had previously felt indestructible when the cracks started to show. To jump off that cliff edge and trust that I would land on my feet, which I did. Without the forced push of my suspension, I may never have left that job. If I’d never left that job I would never have gotten even more out of my internship, I would have never got my full-time position, I would have never started travelling solo, gone to New Zealand for a year, started to learn Tarot or built the Energetic Tarot community. 

This is why I say I have a complicated relationship with The Fool because it is both my saviour and my bully. It’s one up from tough love, it’s painful and forced growth.