What Are You Actually Working Towards?

Weekly Collective Tarot Reading

Eight of Pentacles · Ten of Cups · Two of Swords

Sometimes we get so focused on building a better life that we forget to ask what a better life actually means to us.

This week’s cards are the Eight of Pentacles, Ten of Cups and Two of Swords. And there’s something about this combination that immediately made me think about how easy it is to become very good at doing without stopping to ask where all that doing is actually taking us.

We work on ourselves. We work on our businesses, relationships, routines, homes and plans. We try to improve things, fix things and create something better.

And none of that is necessarily a problem.

But then there’s the Ten of Cups sitting right next to all that effort, followed by the Two of Swords.

And it made me wonder:

What are you actually trying to create with everything you’re doing?

The Eight of Pentacles and Always Having Something to Work On

I actually really like the Eight of Pentacles. There’s dedication in this card. You keep showing up, learning, improving and slowly building something through what you do again and again.

But I think there’s another side to this energy too.

There can always be something else to improve.

Another goal. Another habit. Another thing to finish before you can relax. Another version of yourself you think you need to become.

And sometimes being busy working on our lives can feel so productive that we don’t question whether everything we’re working towards still matters to us.

Maybe something once made perfect sense.

That doesn’t automatically mean it still does.

What Does the Ten of Cups Mean to You?

The Ten of Cups is usually associated with happiness, emotional fulfilment, love and connection. But I think the interesting question isn’t whether those things are coming.

It’s what they actually look like for you.

Because it’s surprisingly easy to build a life around ideas of happiness that we picked up somewhere else.

What a good relationship should look like. What success should look like. Where we should live. How much we should achieve. What we should have figured out by a certain age.

Maybe you can spend years working towards something before realizing that the version of happiness you were chasing isn’t quite yours anymore.

And I think that’s where the Two of Swords becomes really interesting.

Maybe You Don’t Need Another Goal

The Two of Swords often appears when there’s something we’re struggling to decide or something we’re not quite ready to look at.

But next to these cards, I don’t necessarily see it as a simple choice between two options.

Maybe the uncertainty comes because you’ve been moving for so long that you haven’t stopped to ask yourself what you actually want now.

Not what you wanted three years ago.

Not what would make sense on paper.

Not what everyone around you seems to be building.

What would make your life feel good to you now?

That question can be surprisingly difficult to answer.

You’re Allowed to Change the Destination

I think sometimes we treat changing our minds like evidence that we got something wrong.

We invested time in it. We worked hard for it. We told people this was what we wanted.

So surely we should keep going.

But maybe everything you’ve built still mattered, even if it eventually leads you somewhere different than you originally imagined.

You’re allowed to learn something about yourself along the way.

You’re allowed to realize that something you once wanted doesn’t fit anymore.

And you’re allowed to discover that happiness looks much simpler, stranger or completely different from what you thought it would.

✨ Maybe the point of all that work isn’t to arrive at the life you once planned.

Maybe it’s to know yourself well enough to recognize the life you actually want.

A Reflection for This Week

If you’ve been working hard towards something lately, maybe don’t immediately ask yourself what you need to do next.

Ask yourself:

What am I actually hoping all of this will give me?

And then maybe the more interesting question:

If nobody else had an opinion about what my life should look like, would I still be working towards the same thing?

You don’t necessarily have to change anything because of the answer.

But I think it’s worth knowing. ✨