Daily Horoscope for Virgo

Horoscope Cast for Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

by daniel "bud" dowd

Daily Horoscope for Virgo Summary

Do you ever struggle to turn your mind off? For some, it’s a weird question (why would you want to turn your mind off?), but for others, they’ll know what I’m talking about.

I guess, to start the whole story off, I went to what was at the time rated as the #4 high school academically in the United States (it’s still in the top 20 I think). Everybody there was pretty much some kind of genius. I became friends with a lot of them. Even amongst people I know from outside of high school, the vast majority of my friends are at the higher limits of intelligence. Being smart is great. Sort of…

As I’ve become older though, I’ve seen things from a different perspective. I don’t want to over-generalize it, but with a lot of people I know, there’s a lot of baggage that comes along with intelligence. Some of it’s social; if you’re the smartest guy in the room, often times people come to you more frequently with problems to solve. Some struggle to find people to connect with on a social level because they’re on a different wavelength mentally. Others come off as “quirky” or “idiosyncratic” or do “insane” things.

And some of it comes from the nature of the mind always working itself. I know personally, there are times where I really don’t want to think of anything at all. I spend the vast majority of my day solving problems, processing details, trying to see new angles to approach something from. It’s constant. It gets stressful. I go through periods of mental exhaustion, where my focus is just shot. I just want to turn my mind off and get some rest, but it’s not that easy. Thoughts just keep flooding in.

Anyway, this isn’t really a story about me, as much as it is about Dave. Dave died on Friday. Went to high school with me. We weren’t tight, but we were friends; I saw him once a year or so. Great guy, had a ton of smart things to say. He was a musician, played piano. That was his thing.

Dave also used to drink pretty hard, and had his bouts with depression as well. I didn’t know him well enough to know what triggered those sorts of things, but I know enough people who’ve gone down a similar path to know that it doesn’t really matter. The “events” are only the starting pistol that begins the race; it’s what happens in the mind after the fact that feeds the problem.

If you take a step back, and look around you, in many ways, we live in a world of ubiquitous negativity. The news is rife with negative events and divisive political banter. People fixate on celebrities, who put forth extremely difficult expectations to meet in terms of body image acceptance. We constantly look at outliers as a symbol of what should be possible for everyone, without accepting some people are outliers for non-replicable reasons. Often we seek to emulate someone else, without considering evolving beyond that example. These examples end up having a significant impact on our expectations of the world around us.

Ultimately though, everything listed in the previous paragraph is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. It’s real, but it’s not real. It’s all simply a perspective. Plenty of poorly circulated, positive news happens regularly – look at a science journal once in a while. Most people you know don’t have six-pack abs, and probably next to no one you know is a model or on TV. What somebody else accomplishes should have no impact on you; you set your own goals and standards, and if you achieve them, that’s all that matters. Perspective comes from within; you can change this whenever you choose. It doesn’t mean that’s easy, but it’s possible.

We all have our battles. It’s up to us to choose how to fight them. It’s also up to us how important we make them. How much help we enlist in trying to win them. There’s no right way to do it. Take solace in life’s victories. Appreciate them. Appreciate the things that you do well, and the things you overcome. For some like me, it’s the moments of mental quiet we can achieve. I hope Dave found his.

Bud

The Daily Horoscope for Virgo

Bud's regular scope returns next week.