Degrees of Life: Zodiacs: Pertaining Or Not, Do Not Bash

Chinese Zodiac Sign: Horse

I was once talking to my friend about being a Horse in the Chinese Zodiac, and she scoffed, "Yeah, like people actually believe in this kind of stuff." Okay. I have never really gotten over the fact that she dissed a part of my heritage, because I firmly believe in my...Horse-ness. I am an easy-going, popular with lots of friends, good with money, quick-witted, and arrogant yet humble, full of contradictions, etc. But that's because since I was young, I was constantly identified as a Horse. My extended family got me 24-karat gold necklaces with Horse-shaped pendants, I would get red envelopes with gold horses embossed into the decoration. I have always been a Horse, since I can remember. For a long time I thought maybe I was the sheep, during my emo years, but then I blossomed after those stifling years in high school into this popular, eccentric, charismatic, clever person, and I am very happy with myself.

Then I found out that my parents engineered my zodiac sign. I was a C-section scheduled for February 12, right before the cut off date of 1991 for the Year of the Horse. "We didn't want an overly emotional sheep daughter," my Chinese Mexican American parents said. Am I supposed to actually be that gosh darn sheep? After about a week of a severe identity crisis, I decided. No. I'm a Horse. I am a Horse because when I was young, I read about the personality traits of a Horse, and I superimposed them on myself, and that became who I am and probably always will be. If people like the traits of an identification, they will work, like I did, to make themselves more like that which this identification says they are.

So when someone, especially a friend, scoffs at my self-identification as a Horse, I got pretty defensive. What a Sagittarius thing to say. Just kidding.

I know a lot of people feel silly for subscribing to what the zodiac says, so they often keep their belief in it a secret out of fear of being ridiculed. It's like they don't want to be associated with this pagan system while at the same time they totally believe in it, and that's heart-breaking. If someone truly believes that they are an Aquarius or a Snake or a Dragon, they probably will have the coinciding personality traits whether that's who they really are or not. Every sign in both the Western Astrological system and the Chinese Zodiac has both pros and cons about them, so there aren't objectively any signs that are better than the others (although a Dragon could probably give the super awesome Horse a run for her money).

People shouldn't feel ashamed for actually accepting to any extent these paradigms, because they could potentially coincide with their sign. It's not that the sign controls and limits who we are, but that we choose to accept it. We're not giving up ourselves at all.

Even if people don't choose to listen to me because they think what I'm saying is cuckoo for choco-poofs, I'm glad my parents made me the Year of the Horse, thus making me want to make myself like the horse. Apparently it gave me enough charisma and eccentricities to be chosen as one of the seven awesome girls who get to author this blog!

I don't know about that whole thing about how Horses have a lot of sex appeal though. I keep hearing that....I think maybe the ancient Chinese astrologers were just so dazzled by the super awesome Horse that they just willy-nilly wrote that they have a lot of sex appeal. My frumpy Star Wars t-shirts and uncut hair long enough to get caught in closing doors would beg to differ. Yes. My hair gets stuck in closed doors (car doors, house doors, windows, you name it). Very sexy.

Happy Humpday, everyone!

Go check out your daily zodiac and see if it's true! Apparently people are going to nurture me today. Yay.

Éli

Edit: I just reread my post. Wow. I am such a Horse.