Forget Zodiacs - let's tip the scales

Do I dare to tip the scales? According to zodiac signs everyone is placed in order - their personalities and lives formulated around some core values or traits. And it isn't as though I want to come across as pessimistic when I say I don't believe in them. Because the truth is I mostly don't believe in them for me. In life, we either fit a mold, form into the mold we are told to be, or rebel against the mold. It isn't exactly like one is better than the other - it is just the way things turn out.

Some people are naturally so much like their zodiac sign it can, for a moment, make you believe that they are real. Is this by mere chance, or something else? Then there are the people that turn into their sign - the messaging of what they are meant to be like slowly slips into their brain until they become more and more like they are supposed to be. After all, it is a fascinating idea to have your personality in someway molded by the stars. In a way, it makes you desperate to believe in it. There are people who hate the idea of zodiac signs so much that they do everything in their power to prove to others and themselves that they are nothing like their star sign - which ironically sometimes mean they act like their star sign. I've been in the category of not liking star signs for the longest time, and it isn't because I didn't believe in zodiac signs per-say, but rather because mine just doesn't fit.

In this life of balance, do I dare to throw things into chaos? I wanted to fit in and belong, but there was just something that made no sense to me. The Libra star sign is all about balance, which was something I never had, nor something I had even wanted. Most people would argue that balance is what life comes down to. It is in the balance - the balance of good and bad, of right and wrong, of joy and pain - this is what makes us human. But there was something that bothered me with it all.

My life never felt at all balanced - if anything it was quite the opposite. So why should I believe in star signs? How was I to value something that I never really knew? My life wasn't like a set of scales - it was a roller coaster of extremes. My mind would jump from one emotion to the next - glee to despair in seconds. There was nothing balanced about that, and I was so used to it that I didn't even want balance if I could find it. Because, after all, isn't balance boredom? Isn't it a plateaued existence?

Life is often seen as a balancing act, but should it be? There is a danger in living in extremes, or in excess. There is also a danger in restricting your life. It seems as though in this balancing act we just cannot win. And why should we try?

It sounds defeatist, but it really isn't. I should preface this by saying it is important to have some kind of equilibrium - at least in a partial sense. Happiness is meaningless without the contrast of despair. Pleasure is heightened by the remembered experience of pain. But in fixating on trying to get a perfect balance of whatever it may be - work and leisure, excitement and routine, selflessness and self-indulgence - the harder it is to have a fulfilling life.

We are chasing a life of perfect balance and equilibrium - but in doing so we cause ourselves despair. The way to genuinely have fulfillment is to forget this idea of balancing out the scales altogether.

I am meant to value balance - that is what the Libra star sign means. But I don't wish for balance. Instead, I want a perfectly coordinated chaos. We can coordinate our lives to include light and shade, without calculating which bucket is more full. I will forget about this idea of balance.

And valuing balance is not necessarily a bad thing if it causes your life fulfillment. It is the fixation on it that causes such pain, and if you appreciate a balanced life without trying to hunt it down, then I commend you. I have never been one of those people. I will instead commit to a life of coordinated chaos.