Rihanna, a Pisces.
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Getty Images
The last quarter moon in Sagittarius introduces a note of tension today, making it easier to clash — probably over unimportant matters — with people you care about. For better or worse, everyone is likely to express their opinions bluntly; if you can put your ego aside and avoid taking things too personally, it’s an ideal time for working through your differences. In the afternoon, friction between Mercury and Jupiter could make it easy to overshare, so make an extra effort to think before you speak.
You might accidentally hurt others’ feelings today — maybe everyone around you is a bit more irritable than usual, maybe you’re too busy and distracted to choose your words with as much care as you’d like. Give yourself some grace — people occasionally express themselves imperfectly, and even the closest of friends can step on each other’s toes — and don’t be too proud to apologize if you say something you regret. The point isn’t to never make a mistake, but to make amends when it happens.
Your challenge today is to be thoughtful about where you direct your attention. There’s so much going on around you that seems urgent, but that doesn’t mean it’s all equally important, or that it’s all your responsibility to deal with. If you spend your time running from one crisis to the next, you’ll never end up making any headway on the projects that you care most about. Learning to block out the distractions isn’t just about saying no to the things that don’t matter, but about creating space to say yes to the ones that do.
In some situations, it actually is possible to satisfy everyone — at least, it’s possible to avoid irritating anyone. But today, that’s probably not a realistic goal: Too many people want something from you, and their needs all seem to be at odds with each other. Do your best not to make any unnecessary enemies, but accept that you won’t be able to make everyone happy. Your energy is a limited resource, and you have a life of your own to live, too.
When things don’t go the way you wanted, you’re not the sort of person to blame everyone around you — you’re more likely to assume that you made a mistake along the way. But today, give yourself more credit than that. You did the best you could, and maybe the timing was off, or you were in the wrong place, or luck just wasn’t on your side this time. You might feel discouraged, but don’t take this as a sign that you’re inept or unworthy of your goals. Keep trying, and you’ll get there eventually.
The more intense your emotions are, the more it feels like nobody else really understands you or takes you seriously — especially if the optics of your life don’t seem too terrible. In order to get your friends to listen to you, it can feel like you have to cast everything in the most dramatic light possible. But today, be cautious of the impulse to exaggerate. It could feel counterintuitive, but describing what you’re feeling in the simplest words possible might be the best way to reach the people in your life.
The more you expect somebody else to meet all your needs, the more likely they are to disappoint you. It works the other way, too — if another person expects you to be everything to them, you’ll feel overburdened and stifled. If the expectations in any of your relationships have become unreasonable, this could be a good day for a reset. No one person can bear all the responsibility for anyone else’s happiness, so try to make sure you’re not asking for more than your friends can give — or promising more than you can give.
Today, it might feel like all your friends keep oversharing. While normally you’d be happy to listen, if only to make them happy, right now it just feels like a distraction you can’t afford — you need to save your energy for the important information, for the issues that actually matter to you. But try to keep an open mind. The things that seem meaningless might turn out to be important; don’t assume you know ahead of time what will and won’t make a difference to your life.
You tend to worry that if you stopped thinking so much — if you let yourself act spontaneously or take creative risks — everything you’ve worked so hard for would come crashing down. It often feels like your careful control is the only thing holding any of it together. But today, loosen your grip. There’s no way to plan for everything that might possibly happen, and trying will only stress you out further. For now, do your best to focus on the things you can actually change, and let the rest go.
It’s difficult to assess yourself with any kind of objectivity, so when you want to know whether you’re doing a good job and making the right decisions, you often try to see yourself through others’ eyes. But thinking about how your life appears to the people around you is only useful up to a point. It’s easy to get so preoccupied with how your life seems to others, that you forget to take into account how it actually feels to be living it. Today, prioritize your own experience. You’ll know what feels right.
You do your best to move cautiously; instead of being rushed into any important decisions, you want to be thoughtful and deliberate every step of the way. But today, external circumstances might make this difficult. Situations arise that demand your attention; other people disrupt your schedule; you stumble on opportunities that require you to act now. It might not be ideal, but it isn’t the worst thing in the world, either. No plan is totally foolproof, and if it becomes impossible to follow yours, you still have your instincts and good judgment to fall back on.
It’s often hard for you to recognize when a project is finished — you can always see ways to improve, to push yourself just a bit farther. While some people might be satisfied with the bare minimum, you need to know that you’ve done your very best. Today, just make sure that perfectionism isn’t getting in your way. You might never reach a point where you feel like you’ve done absolutely everything right, but eventually, you have to decide that you’ve done enough and move on.
Lately, you feel resistant to the idea of “personal growth.” You understand that there’s nothing inherently wrong with you, and you’d rather make peace with yourself as you are than waste time trying to upgrade your personality. But while you’re under no obligation to change — especially not to satisfy anyone else’s expectations — remember that you can. Forget about everybody else’s chatter: If you decide that you want a change, it’s in your power to make it happen.
Buy Claire Comstock-Gay’s book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, here.