I read the horoscopes every weekend. Not only mine, but all my children’s, grandchildren’s and friends’. I worry if anyone is heading for trouble, be it romantic, financial or professional. How do I stop this obsession?
M.F., Brighton East, VIC

Years ago in my 20s, I bought a cheap, gimmicky, obscure-brand hi-fi system with loads of impressive features. It had a choice of radio and/or CD. A screen that said, “Goodbye!” when I switched it off. And the most impressive feature of all: a biorhythms calculator that forecast my mental, physical and emotional levels for the whole day.

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It came up as a tiny, flashing, digital graph, so I knew this was some pretty legit, science-y stuff. Amazingly, those daily biorhythms always turned out to be spot-on. If the hi-fi told me I was going to have a low emotional day, I instantly felt glum and uninspired and wept to R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts. If the hi-fi told me I was going to have a good physical day, I felt bouncy and upbeat and moshed to Walking on Sunshine. I was obsessed. Biorhythms became a biohazard: my life was being controlled by a $59 sound-system from Korea with no treble control and a CD lid you had to prise open with a fork.

Thankfully, the hi-fi died after six months: it just said “Goodbye!” one morning and permanently switched itself off in an act of self-loathing. And I realised that I’d been conned by yet another future-predicting scam. No different to horoscopes, tarot cards, numerology, fortune cookies or weather forecasts.

My advice to you: get off your horoscope obsession immediately. Those things will mess with your head, make you anxious, change your moods. Force you to listen to downbeat music when you were really needing a bit of Katrina and the Waves.

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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