A Facebook post I saw recently posed this question: Which astrological Sun sign would you choose to be instead of the one you are? Well, I was born when the Sun was in Scorpio. Black and white. Wrong. Right. All or nothing. Tell anyone you are a Scorpio and you get this raising of the eyebrow thing and an ”ohhhh”, like they really know. When I was a teenager (and back then everyone asked), I actually said I was a Sagittarius—it seemed to take the edge off.

Once I began to truly study astrology I learned I there were four planets in Scorpio and no planets in Sagittarius at the time I was born, so that whole, “I am really a Sagittarius” thing went right out the window. I was obviously very Scorpio.

Then I spent much of my adult life allowing the ‘all or nothing’ intense, passionate, ridiculous Scorpionic thing to determine my actions. Enough already.

Now I know. When you are born with the sun in a certain sign, it’s because you are in this life to master the aspects of that Sun sign, positive and negative. As astrologist Steven Forrest would say, I am not ‘a Scorpio’—I’m ‘Scorpio-ing’. We aren’t supposed to wallow in our stuff, or allow ourselves to be buffeted about by it, or use our Sun sign as an excuse.

We have the task to show the rest of the world how to do ‘this’ the right way, and it may take all of this lifetime to do it. Allowing a passionate nature or any other aspect of our personalities to control us can cause lots of problems for us and those around us.

Now, I try to take the middle road, the peaceful way. I find, like Robert Frost, The Road Less Traveled has made all the difference. Moderation is the hardest road, but it’s the most rewarding. Strange coming from a Scorpio. But I believe in the wave pattern as a physics and life principal.

Now I would rather float on the small, luscious, sweetly lapping waves off the beach in Playa Del Carmen than try to surf those intense, crashing, impossible-to-swim-in-and-freezing-waves (where someone was eaten by a great white, by the way) off the rocky beach in La Jolla, thank you. Every time.