5/31/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. An old, clichéd saying for sure, but it's true. The thing is, that probably doesn't mean it's going to be any different from any other day so far.

You will have the opportunity to change your life, to make it better, to achieve more, to get it back on the right course. You should take that opportunity.

Just understand it will most likely be a small (or very big!) step in the right direction, but it will be the first day of a long, hard road back to the light in many cases.

You will find many reasons to quit, and go back to your old habits. You will slip up and fail from time to time.  That’s what happens, no one is perfect.  Don’t expect yourself to be.  Don’t get down on yourself, or disappointed or feel ashamed because you didn’t live up to some ridiculous standard you have for yourself.

Pick yourself up, admonish yourself for a moment if you must, then resolve to do better.  Don’t let a momentary setback become an excuse to sink into misery and self loathing and give up.  You have lived that day before.

Today is the day you can try something different.  Today is the day you can be someone you always wanted to be.  Today is the day you can change even a tiny behavior that steals some of your self esteem.  Today you can decide that you want to grow as a person, and maybe jettison someone that is holding you back.   Today you take that first step towards making your whole life better.  Today you can take that first difficult step towards making your dreams come true.  

Or you can just keep going on the way you were, which is what our brains want us to do.  We become accustomed to what we see and do everyday.  We quickly accept the loneliness, the tedium, the abuse, the pain of everyday living when we know we aren’t satisfied but too frozen to move ahead.  Our brains tell us that while they know we aren’t fulfilled, the alternative could be worse.  Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.  

If you find your life has arrived at the point where you need to pick between devils, maybe you need to change your life.  

So you can continue to live a half life, tolerable but with the mild irritation that goes with denial.  You can keep walking the path you’re on, afraid to look up to see where you’re going, because you know and you can’t bear to look.  You can keep facing the day, knowing that you are letting yourself and the people around you down in so many ways, and feeling anger and resentment to mask the fact that you know what you should be doing.  You can awake every morning, and set out on the same course, the one that brings you vague dissatisfaction or pain and misery or self hatred.  But why in the world would you do that?  If you find you have no answer to that question, that is your answer right there.

You have lived that day before.  

5/30/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today the stars think of those that have fallen in service defending their country. They died as heroes, and at the very least they deserve this day to remember their sacrifice.

The stars are stars though, and mostly they weep thinking about why anyone has to die fighting a war. They can't understand why we would ever go through the great torment and horror of war when it is completely unnecessary.

The stars love us, but they hate that we can inflict even a tiny bit of misery on each other, let alone wholesale destruction on a global scale. They hold the people in power that can send soldiers to die on a whim in such low regard. They see how desensitized we have become to the horrors of war and how quickly we fill with bloodlust.

Honestly, if the stars weren't so determined and so enamored of our other traits they would have written us off long ago. But still they forge on, loving us and hoping we can still make it, like the parents of a child with drug addiction or schizophrenia.

You must remember too that many of the heroes made on the battlefield were pressed into service at a very young age, thrust into a battle where many times they didn't even understand exactly what they were fighting for.

The soldiers on the other side were in the same position. We always tend to characterize the enemy forces as evil, but in reality they are usually in the same position as our troops. Perhaps they are fighting and dying for a despot or a madman that has convinced them they are involved in a noble endeavor.

In the end, soldiers on either side are treated like pawns in a chess match, seen as the lowest value on the board and the first to be sacrificed in battle.

So think of them as heroes, and honor their memories and thank them for their service, because it is a supreme sacrifice and deserves recognition.

But do not celebrate war. Wars are terrible things, and many of the heroes that have lived to come home want no part of it once they have seen it up close.

Thank you to anyone that served in the military in any capacity.

5/27/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today the stars want to tell you something so basic and so simple that it often goes overlooked. Remember that making life easier for others in any way makes it better in all ways. For all of us. Many of us don't actively work towards helping others, and in today's world that's understandable. We are seemingly bombarded from all sides by demands on our time, faced with problems and stumbling blocks as we travel through life. We tend to get so wrapped up in everything that we can stop noticing that all around us are people dealing with things, and they could use a helping hand.

It would do you well to occasionally take a break from your hectic life and just breathe, and look around you. Notice others, and what they are dealing with. We sometimes get so self absorbed that we forget to see people as people. They become one dimensional, and we tend to marginalize their needs and problems.

You might be surprised to learn that some of them, even people you are very close to, are in crisis. You might be shocked when you slow down and really talk to them to find out their life is falling apart. There is always something going on in people's lives that they aren't talking about, and most people want to talk about it if someone would only ask. Help them if you can.

If you have the time, there are always people in your community that need help. Shelters, filled with families and children, animal rescues, suicide and drug addiction helplines that are always looking for volunteers. Again, if you have the time or resources, help if you can.

Some people don't want to help people on the fringe of society. Some people think that depressed people or people dealing with addiction issues, even in their own lives or families, are weak or somehow deserving of scorn. They say they will only help those that help themselves. That's their right. So if you are one of those people, just do that, then.

There are plenty of people trying. People working two or three jobs, people struggling everyday to overcome addiction or to make amends for past mistakes. So help those people. There are people that are helping others. They are giving their free time and energies to make the world a better place for those less fortunate. Do the same for them.

Realize that no one is talking about a massive outlay of effort either. Just an acknowledgement, just letting someone know that you are proud of them for trying, that all they do does not go unnoticed. Usually helping others is a thankless job, and just by letting someone know that they are appreciated will help them keep going. With a minimum amount of effort you can at least give someone that is making a difference a little boost to continue making the world better.

It will make you feel better too. When we help others it lifts our self esteem and gives us purpose. We can forget that, over and over, unless we keep doing it. That will make us want to keep doing it, and if all of us do just the bare minimum a few times a week, we will change the world.

That's all it takes, just a slight shift in how you see the people around you and a kind word or action now and then. One drop of water in the ocean, which might not seem like much, but we need to remind ourselves that the ocean is made up of drops. You do the little things and let the big picture take care of itself.

The stars understand this. The stars emit their particles, some of the tiniest things in the universe. They travel through space, invisible and at the speed of light. We don't even realize that they are there, yet they are the basis of nearly all life, on our world and more than likely a trillion worlds we will never even be aware of.

Yet those worlds go on, influenced and kept aloft one ion at a time. So if you can't be that star, be that ion, and we will all do our part.

5/26/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

The stars want you to know that it's not all that bad.  

Whatever it is.

Whomever it is  

Whatever it was then, whatever it will be in the future.

Nothing is as bad as you think, no one is too far gone, there is no situation that is not fixable, no person unredeemable.

If you just try hard enough, if you just hang on and give enough love, anything is possible.

Everything happens for a reason

But that's not true. The stars did not say that.

Poets and dreamers and prophets and Hollywood screenwriters said it, and though they didn't mean to do it, they lied to you. Everything is not always going to work out and love does not always conquer all.

Now calm down, the stars would never hit you in the gut like that if they didn't have a reason. They do not want to tear away your faith, they do not want to discourage you or steal your hopes and dreams. Keep all of that safe and secure, and at the ready, because you will need it to get through life.

Try. Always try. Always leave everything on the field, as the old sports saying goes. But always know the odds. Always know what the world is asking of you, and always know what you have to give.

If you are fighting for your life, of course fight with everything you have. You have nothing to lose.

If you are fighting for someone else, you have to evaluate how much you can give. Then you give it your all, but your all doesn't mean you destroy yourself in the process.

You should think positive, you should expect the best outcome, you should believe that miracles can happen. Just don't kid yourself. It's hard to keep reality in sight sometimes, so don't lie to yourself and whomever you might be trying to help.

And then go out and do it anyway. Because that's what humans do. We run through the stop signs, we throw caution to the wind. We are reckless and foolhardy and wonderfully obtuse when we want to be. It's is dangerous and noble and exhilarating, and one of our best qualities and biggest flaws. It is how we accomplish the impossible.

And if you fail, however spectacularly it might be, that's where the stars want you to know it's going to be alright. Maybe that's when everything happens for a reason. Maybe that's the miracle, that you can still walk away with your heart and soul intact. People do it everyday. People live through shit that they thought would surely kill them. Everyday.

Even your failures are successes, though they don't always seem like it at the time. So the stars will leave it to the poets and the dreamers to fill your head with the hope you need to do what you have to do. That's important.

They will be here to pick you up if you fall short, and love you and cradle you and keep you going if you end up broken and bloodied.  They are eternal, at least from our vantage point. You just have to wait until nightfall to see that they haven't gone anywhere, they have not abandoned you, and that's a very good thing. That's why they show themselves at night, when it's darkest and you need them most.

Because all that effort and achieving the impossible, eventually you're going to have to do it all again, and the stars want to make sure you know that you can.

5/24/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will have a choice. It is the same choice you have everyday. Every moment of your life in fact. You have to decide how you face the world. You have to figure out if you are going to work for yourself or against yourself.

That seems kind of stupid, doesn't it? Who would consciously work against themselves?

Yet when faced with any challenge, when we're not even faced with anything, for that matter, we often choose the darkness. We tend to fixate on what can go wrong rather than what can go right. We worry about things that never come to pass. We obsess over negative outcomes and find bogeymen and demons in the shadows instead of hope and prosperity in the light.

Simply, you can choose to live your life in a positive or negative manner. Your outlook is one of the biggest factors influencing how happy and fulfilling your life is. It sounds trite, and new agey, and like some silly self help fad, but it's not. That's just that negativity again.

It's our old friend fear at work. There are a million reasons why we choose negative instead of positive, but it's all really the same reason. Many of us are simply afraid to think that things will work out right. We think we are tempting fate and that we will jinx ourselves if we say or even think that everything is going well.

There are an infinite number of pithy axioms and sayings that warn against it. “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” We are all familiar with Murphy’s law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. We hear things like this all our life, and it puts the idea in our heads that there is some supernatural force out to get us. There's not. Look at the stars. They need want to guide us, yet the only influence they have is to tell you things you already know in rambling posts on social media.

So many of us go through life trying not to tempt fate, knocking on wood and turning to superstitions to ward off bad fortune. When we see only the bad possibilities, we only arrive at the bad outcomes.

That's not even true. The fact that you are still alive, and despite the fact that you like to bitch and moan about it, you are probably living a much better life than the majority of people on this planet. If life was so fraught with danger, if life was nothing but negative outcomes, how the hell have you made it this far?

The worst that could happen almost never happens. So why do we live in constant fear of it? Why do we assume that the sky will fall every time we have a chance to walk in the sun? Logically, there is no reason for it whatsoever.

So we go on everyday, holding ourselves back, telling ourselves that it's pointless to try, finding any far fetched scenario to keep us from doing what we really want to do. The odds are nearly always in our favor. Yes, there are sometimes people that want to knock us down, but there will always be more people that want to help us up and see us succeed. Who you decide to let influence your life is also a choice.

You will find that you can accomplish so much more in life if you simply expect to. Most of the time things are going to work out a certain way anyway, so you can go through the experience with hope and optimism or you can wallow in misery and self doubt. You can get the most out of it and learn and find opportunity, or you can clench your muscles and squeeze your eyes shut and wait for it to be over, and find yourself in the same place you were when you began.

It is all a choice, and you can be afraid and try in vain to somehow exert control over the uncontrollable, or you can steer into the skid and find the joy and exhilaration you are expecting to be there. It may seem odd or even scary at first, but once you start choosing positivity it will become less of a conscious choice and more of an instinct. You most likely choose the negative path subconsciously now, why not turn that around?

View a setback as an opportunity. See a failure for what it is, a normal part of the learning experience that helps us grow. Imagine a happy outcome to whatever you're facing, and try to get as close as you can to that destination. Assume you are going to get a yes rather than a no to your request. You will find that if you expect it, you will influence the people around you to expect it too. Expect to get what you want and people will be more inclined to give it to you.

The stars understand positive versus negative. They know that when the universe began there were equal parts matter and antimatter. Not exactly equal, though. If it were equal, everything would have canceled each other out and there would be no universe left. There was a tiny fraction more matter though, and at moment of the big bang there was so many particles in existence that the miniscule extra bit of matter left over was enough to create everything we see today. We were so close to winking out of existence seconds after we began, and the only thing that saved us was a tiny needle tick over to the positive side.

You can be that deciding factor in your own life.

The world is limitless, yet we limit ourselves. We hold ourselves back every day, stymied by our own self preservation instinct gone wild. Overcome it. Override it. Use the greatest gift we possess, freewill. Change your outlook and you could change your world.

Don't be afraid to dream big. Don't be afraid to expect things to work out.

Don't live in fear of your happiness being taken away all the time, or you might find that there isn't much happiness left to lose.

5/23/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:
Today the stars want to warn you about loving someone that hates themselves. They can't stress this enough. When someone hates themselves, there's usually nothing you can do to change that. You might think that love can conquer all, and while love can accomplish great things, the people you lavish it on must be receptive.
When someone truly hates themselves, most times loving them unconditionally only makes them resent you. Your love makes them hate themselves even more, age in turn hate you. It is a losing battle, and they will go out of their way to prove to you and the world how horrible they really are.
It will break your heart. There is no way to win. These people have been damaged and broken, maybe not beyond repair, but you are not the ones to fix them. With a lot of work, they can fix themselves, but it will take a herculean effort. If they are trying, then, and only then will you have a chance to be able to help them, but even then it will be hard and torturous and filled with setbacks.
Unfortunately for them, and for you, they have been destroyed by something or someone before you came along. The reason you cannot fix them is because they need to hear it from the people that devastated them in the first place, and more often than not that person is not going to give them what they need.
They need to know why. They need to hear that they were innocent, that they were wronged, that the person that did this to them is sorry. In almost every case, any person that can take something so valuable from someone else so casually isn't looking to admit their transgressions.
So the victim is left holding the bag, and if you aren't careful you will be the stand in for the perpetrators, and you will get all the anger, all the scorn, every horrible thing they can twist around and blame on you.
Don't misunderstand. They will love you in their own twisted way. More than anything on this planet.
And that is why they will hate you. That is why they will betray you and hurt you and discard you for others that treat them badly. They want you to see that they don't deserve you. They want to be the worst person they can possibly be, because that's who they think they are.
It is tragic, and terrible, and heartbreaking when it's someone you love. When you think you met your soulmate, and they try so hard for a while to be what you want them to be, what they wish they were. But it won't last, and soon it will become clear who they really are, and then God help you.
Sometimes though, it's your child, and you can't walk away. You can't do anything but live a nightmare and hope to God you can get through to them before drugs or depression or recklessness or psychosis does them in. It is one the most heartbreaking scenarios life can throw at you.
So the stars want to tell you, if you know any people like this, pity them. They are living in hell, full of self hatred and utter disgust, living a delusion that tears them apart. It causes them to commit atrocities, to harm themselves and to rip themselves apart. Don't chastise them, don't hurt or abuse them, or take advantage of them and add to their pain.
But don't give your lives to them. They will never appreciate it, they are incapable. They are incapable of truly loving you, no matter what they tell you. They will only punish you while they punish themselves.
The stars want to help, always. They want to enlighten, and encourage, and save each and every one of us.
They know that they can't. They will be here, forever providing a light to call the ones they love back home, but they know that call will many times go unanswered.
They know sometimes that there is no solution, nothing they can do, no correct reaction, no good outcome.
And they cry harder than you ever thought possible, as their heart breaks and they say goodbye.

5/22/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:
The stars want to tell you to stop expecting answers. That doesn't mean you should stop asking the questions, especially not the big ones, about the nature of the universe, about science and philosophy, and certainly not the big questions you ask of yourself.
We should always strive to learn, about the world around us, and ourselves.
The problem is, we expect answers to questions where there are none, not any satisfactory ones anyway. We become obsessed and crippled by the actions of others, be it parents when we were children, friends or lovers as we get older, even strangers that commit random acts of violence and cruelty upon us for no earthly reason. Sometimes we demand an answer of the whims of the universe, call it fate or chance.
You are most likely never going to get those answers. You have to accept that, and put your head down and power through. Often there are no big answers, just the same crappy ones we always had, and when we arrive at them again and again we think it's a mistake. So we waste more time and energy going through the events that took place, hoping there was something we missed that will help us make sense of it.
Often times there is not, and you will get no closure, no resolution to your trauma, your broken heart, your repeated cries of “why me?” So many people are broken, so their actions make no sense. They cannot give you answers because they don't know the answers themselves, and dwelling on the “why” of it will eventually leave you broken also.
The same goes for questioning the fickle ways of fate. Sometimes you just get sick. Sometimes the plane goes down. Sometimes events coalesce just right and the person you love most, be it child or parent, lover or friend, is taken from you senselessly and without warning. You are left to try to understand something that has crushed you and made you doubt everything you ever thought you knew.
Sometimes there are no answers to find. It will consume you if you let it. The only way to move forward is to do the thing most of us fear more than anything. The only answer you have is the three words all of us damaged human beings rail against. The answer seems so insulting, so cruel, so without understanding or tact. No matter how much you refuse to accept it, no matter how much it makes you feel guilty or like you gave up, it's the only way to get back to the light.
Let it go.
You have to let it go. That goes against everything we are. We will fight to hold on to our precious pain, to wring every last drop of sorrow and regret out of whatever we are clinging to. It can't be that hard and that easy, but it is.
It is all we have to heal us, to help us move on, to keep going so we can finally get it right.
The stars understand about letting go. They are massive, and as such they warp spacetime and pull everything into them. All the planets, circling them at just the right speed with just the right pull, so we all stay in orbit and function like clockwork. Pull too hard and it all collapses, crashing into the sun in a fiery demise.
It takes all your strength and a very light touch, all at the same time. It is a very difficult trick to master, and many of us never do. You have no chance of mastering it if you cling to the past, stuck in a moment, never moving on. Not moving on means never growing, never getting past a memory you find yourself chained to. But you are not chained to it, you are simply holding onto it in a death grip, clasping it so tightly that your knuckles whiten and your muscles ache, and there is only one way to get yourself free.
Let it go.

5/20/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

The world is full of thieves and murderers.

The world is full of good Samaritans and self sacrifice.

The world is scary and confusing and painful at times.

The world is full of beauty and love and and magic at times.

There is a lot about the world we aren't even close to understanding.

We know more about the world around us than the previous thousand generations that came before us combined.

We might be struck down by random tragedy or illness at any moment.

We might find everything we are looking for when we're not even looking.

The simple act of living might overwhelm us and drag us down and engulf us and make our brief time here a living hell that seems like an eternity.

The simple act of living may result in all your dreams coming true, and it will seem like your life was much too short.

These are the extremes we ricochet back and forth between our entire existence, but the stars want to remind us that our true path more often than not lies somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes we control the trajectory, sometimes not. Your job is to figure out which is which.

Then you learn to control what you can and accept what you can't.

Then you can plot your own course to the stars.

5/19/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:
Today you should stop demanding the world make sense. Your idea idea of what's rational is different from everyone else's. You might be in total agreement on some things. You might form a friendship or a romance or a committee with people based on how alike you seem, but sooner or later some viewpoint or action will pop up and you will think they are crazy. Probably sooner.
That's just with healthy, well adjusted people. Never mind the fact that there are a huge number of irrational, still confused about who they are people out there. Then there are the ones that are actually suffering from mental health issues, stemming from chemical imbalances or trauma or just really horrific parenting.
So nothing is going to make much sense, at least not for long. Everyday you are bombarded by decisions and actions that seem insane, by your loved ones, by your boss or coworkers, by people on the street, people in the news, sometimes people you don't even have any interaction with, but you know are out there.
The stars love us and watch over us, but they gave up expecting us to act sensibly long ago. They understand that we all see things differently for a myriad of reasons. They have come to accept that we are going to hurt and hinder each other and ourselves, and usually never have a coherent excuse for doing it. They see how we are controlled by fear and plagued by insecurity, and people in that situation rarely act rationally.
So it's time we see it in ourselves and stop acting surprised when yet again everything around us seems askew and without reason. Nothing is going to make sense because people are rarely sensible.
The universe is chaos, and we make it worse.

5/18/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:
Unless you’re an actual detective, today is the day you should stop being a detective.
When you have kids, you need to be a detective sometimes. At some points in their lives, because of peer pressure or insecurities or just because they’re kids, children will hide things from their parents. It is your job sometimes to try to figure out what they are up to. You observe their eating, sleeping and socializing habits, you might even look through their stuff if it gets very worrisome, although that should probably be a last resort. That is your job as a parent. You have to keep an eye on their behavior and try to discern what’s really going on in their lives and if they are in trouble.
You might find that you are doing the same thing with adults. Your family, friends and lovers. You are constantly wondering why they do what they do, or if they have some secret life you don’t know about. Are they lying, are they cheating, are they doing something behind your back?
Instead of driving yourself crazy examining everything they say or do, you need to resolve that stuff quick. They are adults. Ask them what’s going on, and try not to accuse. You only accuse if you have solid proof, if not you will lose your position and doubt yourself when they deny it. If you don’t believe what they are telling you, demand proof or walk away.
If someone loves you, they will work with you to calm your fears or worries. It is a very dangerous game though. People do not like being accused of things they aren’t doing, and they especially don’t like being accused of things that they are doing. What it really comes down to is that there is a trust problem, and if it persists longer than the initial “getting to know someone” part of a relationship it usually never gets better.
So you will be trapped in a tense, chaotic relationship that is doomed from the beginning, and you will spend all your days analyzing clues and chasing shadows. Life is too short for that. Being a detective is a full time job, and it doesn’t leave much time for anything else.
You might also get so caught up in it that you start seeing crimes everywhere. If you are constantly looking for transgressions you will find them, whether they exist or not. No one is going to put up with that for long. No one is going to keep taking the same test with no right answers.
If you have trust issues no matter who you’re with, then you should work on that. You might have a problem, either with trusting anyone or picking the wrong people again and again. If you are with someone that is acting untrustworthy, you need to find out what’s causing that. So many times we know the answer, but we don’t want to face it. We question and doubt what we’re sure of, only because to admit the truth would hurt too much.
So we live a tormented life, between searching for clues and trying to ignore them once we find them. Part of being in a relationship, and kind of relationship, is building trust and not being averse to proving it once and awhile. We have all been lied to, betrayed, and at times treated like dogshit by people we thought loved us more than anything. Any mature, loving person recognizes this and does not have a problem reassuring you when you are scared it might happen again. On the opposite side of the coin, any mature, loving person will come to accept that not everyone in the world is out to screw you over and will let themselves trust those who prove trustworthy.
Any good detective knows that you should trust your gut. Any good detective knows that you can’t go around shouting “Aha!” at everyone. Any good detective knows how to interpret the evidence and decipher the clues and look for patterns. Any good detective knows when to eliminate a suspect from the investigation if they arrive at too many dead ends and there is nothing there. Any good detective knows when someone is lying to them. Any good detective knows to remain impartial and not let emotions cloud the investigation.
The stars want to remind you that very precious few of us are good detectives. We lack the training, we are too close to the case, we have no instincts. We are flailing, so we should not get into situations with anyone where we need to be detectives because we will almost surely fail ourselves and our many suspects.

5/17/16

Today's Horoscope, Crib Notes Version

The stars know how busy we are, so here's a bunch of stuff in a nutshell:

Life is aggravating enough, don't go manufacturing problems and magnifying the existing ones.

Be on guard against narcissistic tendencies. Most things people do are not at all related to you, so stop looking for insults and slights where there are none.

No one is watching you or judging you. Dance like no one is watching etc etc, because no one is and no one cares but you.

Try thinking the best of the people in your life rather than expecting the worst.

Keep in mind that everything seems huge and important as it's happening, but when you look back on your life, even hours later at times, those things really had very little impact.

Also keep in mind that no matter how much impact they had, you got through it, and you'll get through the next one.

Give yourself the same leeway you give others. We are often so much harder on ourselves then than we are on each other, even total strangers.

Don't view your successes as failures. Any progress is success.

Don't punish yourself so harshly for mistakes. That's how we learn. You're supposed to make mistakes.

Everything holding you back in life is simply fear wearing different masks. Work everyday to identify and overcome fear.

Try to be kind rather than angry or spiteful, positive rather than negative, and live in the light rather than the darkness if you have a choice.

Remember, you always have a choice. You control how you react, you control how someone else's actions are going to make you feel, you decide what power you are giving away. Choose wisely.

Some of us are suffering from depression, anxiety,  ptsd, bipolar issues and worse. Horoscopes don't begin to address those problems most of the time. If you are suffering with them, or addiction, or feeling suicidal, please please please try to get help.

There is no shame in what you're going through, and I know that things seem a thousand times worse, but that's not usually the case. It's easy to think irrationally when your mind is screaming at you, and it's so hard to know the difference.

Keep reminding yourself that there are people that love you and want to help, and keep fighting, even though sometimes that's the last thing you want to do.

No one reading this is too far gone. It's never too late to claw your way back to the light. Ask for help, and let the people that love you do just that.

And if you know or meet someone that's suffering, be kind and patient and understanding. Don't judge, don't be trite and condescending, have pity rather than scorn and don't minimize what they're going through. Be supportive rather than reactionary.

Try to treat everyone with respect if you can. We are all dealing with things that others can't see or comprehend at times. Cut yourself and the people around you some slack, and do the best you can. That's all any of us can do.

That, in itself, makes us pretty fucking amazing.

5/16/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you might be tempted to stop talking to someone just because they don't agree with you, or they tell you something you don't want to hear. In simpler terms, you might not want to ignore someone may because they don't automatically validate your bullshit.

Some people have arrived at the idea that being a friend means blindly supporting without question everything someone does. That's not a friend, that's an enabler and a sycophant.

It's hard to tell a harsh truth to someone you care about, but that's what real friends do. It usually gets you nothing but scorn, but that's the price of caring sometimes. We live in a world today where everyone wants to exist with the illusion of safety, afraid of criticism and confrontation.

You can cut people out of your life, or unfollow, or block them, but if you're doing it just because they don't agree with you, then you're cheating yourself and them.  Part of the reason you have people in your life is to challenge you. Input from trusted friends is one of the key components in life that helps you grow and learn.

Differing viewpoints are the lifeblood of civilization. Everything we know is because someone challenged what we thought we'd knew at some point, and was usually shouted down and demonized for simply upsetting the status quo. You're never going to find out who you really are if you don't open yourself up to other people's ideas and opinions.

It's one of the things that's tearing this country apart. Everyone is polarized and you're in one tribe or the other, and if you're in the wrong tribe nothing you say is valid. In this country, everyone is supposed to have a voice, whether you agree with it or not. Everyone gets a seat at the table, but most people want it all their way or no way at all.

When you just surround yourself with people you want to hear you find yourself living in a bubble, and that should not be something you strive for. Eventually, you are going to have to face the real world, and if your personal relationships didn't prepare you for that you are going to flounder, because people out there will have no time to coddle you.

Don't get me wrong, there are toxic people that should be cut out of your life. Just make sure when you do that you figure out if you're cutting out a cancer or healthy cells. If you're not paying close attention it's not always easy to tell the difference.

5/13/16 Bonus

Friday bonus horoscope!

It's the weekend. You made it through another week, and that's something worth taking a second to acknowledge. We should also acknowledge that life is precious and not something we need to “make it through”, but there's no need to muck everything up with semantics right now.
One thing though. This week you may have had one of those discouraging moments when you come to the realization that you've wasted time and energy on something or someone that just wasn't worth it.
Don't be discouraged though! That was actually a good thing. That was learning and growth, and instead of thinking about the time and energy you spent on it, consider the time and energy you saved by noticing it now. You just saved your future self a bunch of trouble, and in the process attained some personal growth.
You just kicked ass! Now go out and have a good weekend. You earned it. You deserve it. 

5/13/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will be reminded ad nauseum to love yourself. In Internet memes, in song, in movies and TV shows, on talk shows and in self help books. Right now, as a matter of fact.

Of course, you should love yourself. Unfortunately, that seems like an impossible challenge to most people, not because they can't love themselves but mostly because there's no discernible way of doing that.

It's not like you decide you love yourself and cartoon hearts appear around you or you get an engagement ring. It's not like everything suddenly becomes wonderful and your whole life falls into place. In fact, it's very anticlimactic and your life might hardly change at all.

That's because learning to love yourself is one of those basic building block things that in a perfect world is something you really shouldn't have to learn. It should be the way you feel from the beginning. It should be ingrained. It is part of the bedrock, not a gaudy skyscraper soaring majestically into the sky.

We have to work so hard just to get up to the starting line.

The term “love yourself” almost puts too much pressure on us. Love is a big and complicated thing, and it can crush you if you are focused on finding it, in others or in yourself. We think of love and we think of fireworks and excitement and an answer to all the questions we can't figure out. That is the romantic aspect of it at times, but that's not the part you're looking for when you learn to love yourself. You want the truly amazing part of love.

Be on guard that you don't fool yourself about love. Just as we convince ourselves that we love someone that is very bad for us, we can delude ourselves that we love ourselves when we are actually insecure and being self destructive.

Real love is a deep and quiet thing, something that is part of you. It is comfort and reassurance and familiarity. It is a rock you cling to, a home you always have to go to. It is security and unconditional and gives you strength when you can't find it anywhere else. It is knowing your deepest secrets and fears and being okay with it.

Maybe instead of badgering everyone with the demand that they love themselves we should just get people to not hate themselves.

Now hate is a pretty strong word, and thankfully I don't think that most people hate themselves. I do think most people have aspects of themselves, real and imagined, that they actively don't like, and they obsess over them and let them get in the way of loving themselves. Many times these are things we constantly overlook in others but can't forgive in ourselves. We punish and torment ourselves, hold ourselves back and deem ourselves unworthy. At best we try to ignore the dark places, and never acknowledge them. That's not love.

Love looks at those places unflinchingly, and shines a light on them with no fear. It knows us and doesn't think less of us. It will be there, rock steady and willing to do whatever work it takes to change the things that need changing and accept the things that don't.

Many of us live with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction about ourselves. We carry guilt and shame and feel we don't quite measure up, and that's not love either.

So we feel like we can't achieve this grand and glorious goal of self adoration, and it becomes one more thing we feel we've failed at. That doesn't have to be the case though.

Love is trust, and trust isn't sexy and flashy either. A huge part of loving yourself is simply acceptance, and knowing who you are and trusting that you'll do the right thing. Most of us are almost there, or could be with a little bit of reflection and soul searching.

Love is respect, and you expect someone that cares about you to treat you well. Love demands that, in fact. Respect yourself and make it a prerequisite that others do and that's another big part of it taken care of right there. See, this isn't so hard.

Perhaps the biggest and hardest part of love is forgiveness. Love is imperfect, we are imperfect, so why berate ourselves and others for not achieving the impossible? It's ironic that many people view forgiveness as a weakness when it really takes a great deal of strength and character and grace. Love is all encompassing, our gifts and our flaws.

So that's most of the battle right there. Those things are so important, but they aren't big, loud declarations accompanied by party streamers and balloons. There is no set goal you arrive at and get a trophy. It is like any love, it has its ups and downs, and it is always growing and changing. It not a thing you capture and put on a shelf. It is living and breathing, and that's what messes people up sometimes. You can't just see it and grab it, or perform some deeds and win it like a merit badge.

It is in you and around you, part of you and part of the world. It is comfort and a place you fit and inhabit. It is never done, and you must always maintain and nurture it.

The stars see you and love you. The stars love themselves, and they shine with the brilliance they achieve that we can also aspire to. Because that is the one thing about loving yourself: while to us it might not seem like a momentous and glorious thing, others notice it immediately.

As we travel contented and at peace through time and space, we will shine brightly and light the lives of those we encounter, and we inspire wonder and grace, and we make their world a better and more beautiful place.

And that is what love is supposed to do.

5/12/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will take a big hit to your ego. You will find out that someone is lying to you, or that you're not as far along as you thought, or that you indeed might be mortal or not always right. You might find that one of the things you always assumed was true about you is not true at all.

The reason our ego takes such big hits is because… well, because it's our ego. Our ego inflates our importance, we all know that. That doesn't just mean we think we know it all or that we're a great lover. It means that it skews so much of our reality simply because we need to have it skewed so we can survive.

Sooner or later you are going to come into contact with the truth, and it can sometimes rock you to your core. We all like to believe that there's a purpose, a reason for everything, and while many times we mistake that feeling for fate, the spirit world, or some celestial guiding hand, that is just our ego thinking that we are so important to the universe that some unseen force is guiding our every move. It's not.

We are all amazing and beautiful and important, but not in the way our brains try to convince us we are. We so desperately look for affirmation that we invent whole other worlds and phenomena to get it. The concept of luck, psychic abilities, feeling marked or guided by the gods, thinking someone can't live without you, even superstitions like knocking on wood, all things your ego strives to convince you are real so you have self worth.

Your brain needs to do it because there's the flip side of the tricks your ego plays. It goes the other way too, and while one half of your ego is building you up with false delusions of grandeur, the other half is comparing you to everything else and telling you that you're not good enough. So even those negative feelings you harbor about every aspect of yourself are your ego messing with you.

Ego loves to build you up and knock you down at the same time. It is singularly responsible for most of the wasted energy in your life. Feeling inadequate, like you don't matter, that you're ugly or stupid in the eyes of others, that's just your ego. It is so insidious that we feel insecure and scrutinized by others, but that is our ego simultaneously telling us we are inferior and inconsequential while also thinking that everyone is actually paying that much attention to our hair, weight, or how much our sneakers cost. We are trapped in a reality where most of the time we are the ones destroying our self image and relationships while others have no idea the battle is raging on without them.

They are usually too wrapped up in their own seesaw battles with their own egos to even notice you. We obsess over what they think because we believe that they spend untold hours everyday thinking of us, conniving and manipulating, looking to knock us down a peg, or judging us constantly. What makes you think you have that much sway over anyone's life? Your ego, of course.

Our ego drives us to do so many things to try to prove our self worth, from striving to make an abusive relationship work, to making us do dangerous things to show we fit in, to posting rambling pseudo horoscopes disguised as life lessons in the Internet. So many of our actions, based on false information and usually having the opposite effect we want it to.

Your ego is never really dead on. It can over inflate your self worth, but just as easily destroy it. Unfortunately, our egos are often the only thing that informs our perceptions and drives our actions. For something that has such a huge impact on our lives, it is surprisingly fragile. It is usually all over the place one way or the other, and like everything else going on in our minds, we need to exert an awful lot of time and focus to make sure it doesn't derail us.

And like everything else we will fail, over and over again. And we won't notice the failures most of the time because our egos won't let us, while other times we will feel like failures even though we are winning because our egos tell us we're bad and wrong and worthless.

The stars watch these constant struggles and sigh. They see us from a vantage point we will never have, and they see how much needless pain and heartache we cause ourselves and each other. They are unclouded by ego, and see our real worth and our true potential, and they are awed by it.

And it is awesome. We are all tiny miracles, all valid, all important in our own way, to the world and to those we love. We are most probably not as perfect or flawed as we think at any given time, but that does not make us bad people. It just makes us human. We owe it to ourselves to find the real us, the person we truly are, so we can put our egos aside and live a much happier and uncomplicated life, and bring light to the world.