Cancers may be frequently inflexible sticks-in-the-mud, but you Capricorns are 50 percent more intractable. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone or something you like and sticking to it—as long as it works out. But what happens when whatever you’ve become attached or accustomed to simply isn’t available (like this week, for example)? Usually, you just hunker down and wait out the drought. May I suggest a better strategy? Seek out new potential habits. Usually, you’d have to sacrifice a known pleasure just to make space to experiment. This week, though, it’s risk-free, since you’re already missing out on your favorite routines; so you might as well spend that time developing new and better ones.

Things simply can’t always be good. You think you want everything to run smoothly and for everyone to be happy. But remember the times when that actually happened in the past? You still found reasons to be dissatisfied. Perhaps you even sabotaged the situation—probably subconsciously, but nevertheless, it was you who screwed it up. You need variety, and that means shittier times to contrast with the better ones. This week is liable to be at least slightly crappier than you’d like, but just remember: It’s not here to make you feel bad, but good about all the many weeks that are better.

Screw your self-destructive urges. Whenever you feel down, you’re inclined to turn towards crap that’ll just make life worse. “Why the hell not?” you figure, and it’s all on: smoking, heroin, living in squalor, unsafe sex, or unhealthy overindulgence in chocolate cake. I get it, but I heartily disagree. Since your life’s already shit, why not do all the crap you ought to do, but just don’t want to do? Deep clean your apartment. Go the gym. Eat healthy. Give it a try. I suspect you’ll drag your ass getting into it, but be skipping and smiling coming out.

The brilliance of Alfonso Cuarón’s latest film, Children of Men, which is set in the future, is that his version of the year 2027 is eminently recognizable as something very much like today, only more extreme. It’s frightening to consider the future we’re setting up for ourselves, and to imagine how today’s problems will only multiply as time goes on. Your personal difficulties are something like those facing humanity and our society as a whole: they’re actually easier to solve today than they ever will be. Not that they’re easy now, but ignoring them won’t erase them. The longer you wait, the more complex and difficult to fix they’ll become.

To a young child, magic appears possible simply because they’re not quite sure how reality works. A friend of mine even imagined that he could somehow grow up to be Wonder Woman; that seemed perfectly viable to him. Gradually, as we grow up, adults teach us the concept of impossibility, roping off what’s available to us bit by bit. Eventually we call this limited perspective “being realistic.” That’s lame-ass crap. Realism is for losers. Everyone who’s ever done something amazing did it despite the fact that people told them it was impossible. This week, keep that in mind before you rope off every dream you (and those you love) ever had.

Cold weather’s a lot more pleasurable if you have someone to share it with. Instead of viewing it as a harsh time that limits your options, consider it a chance to indulge in pleasures unavailable to you during warmer seasons—cuddling under a quilt with someone sweet and a cup of cocoa would be a drag at the height of summer, but it’s ace now. Try it. In fact, try anything and everything that might transform the present moment from simply bearable to brilliant. If you don’t learn this trick, you’ll be just as unhappy come summer when it’ll be too damn hot and you’ll miss wearing your favorite sweater. 

As if the last couple weeks, with all that holiday business, weren’t stressful enough, now you’ll be hit with a whole new flavor of stress—and it’ll be one you’d rather didn’t exist, like pistachio-melon or bubble-gum walnut. Unfortunately, there’s no easy out here, so it’s grin-chew-swallow-grin all the way. It will get better, as long as you don’t spit it back in the faces of the idiots feeding it to you. It’s not like you’re about to acquire a taste for this brand of misery, you’re simply apt to get better at handling it. Yeah, it sucks that you’re being handed heaping platefuls of crap to eat, but the quicker you can choke it down, the quicker you can get to dessert—which will actually taste all the more fantastic for what you had to get through to get to it.

Everyone’s exploring new ways to commit to each other. Old-school marriages don’t often work because they involve (at least for most of our grandparents) an awful lot of lying, deceit and self-deception. These days, we all want to have our cake and eat it, too. We want honesty and openness, but that involves acknowledging that our actual desires rarely fit neatly into perfect relationship boxes—at least not for more than a few years. Sometimes, being each other’s perfect partners means being sexually open, or sharing intimacy with more than one other person, or otherwise stretching our preprogrammed ideas about what love and commitment really mean. Yours are badly in need of a stretch; they can’t even touch their toes anymore. This week, work on that—even if it hurts a little.

You’ve been known to overdose on forgiveness, and I usually counsel you to cool it before you start doling out sixth and seventh chances. But this week, I rescind that general advice. Go hog wild, Mother Theresa. Extend forgiveness to anyone who honestly asks for it, whether it’s their second, fifth, or twenty-third chance. You’re allowed to be cynical, of course, and believe that you’re like to get burned again. In fact, acknowledging that likelihood makes your act of compassion all the more beautiful. It also gives that one person who’s really ready to try something new a chance to actually do it, and your blessing makes all the difference. Could you really withhold that? I sure hope not.

You’re such a comfort to the people around you. How many times have you (figuratively) talked people down from the ledge, or dragged someone up from the dumpster behind your building? You’re a natural diplomat, comforter and shoulder to cry on. When, however, was the last time you allowed yourself to be rescued or otherwise reassured? You shouldn’t go out of your way this week to require consolation or rescue—but if you do happen to need someone to tell you that everything’s going to be OK, please, please ask for it, won’t you?

I can usually trust a Scorpio to be relatively unmotivated by money. You might have a lot of other ulterior motives, but pure profit is usually pretty far down on your priority list. You can be trusted to ignore capital gain if it interferes with your principles or other desires. That’s why your actions of late have confused me, because they seem—at least on the surface—to be motivated by something akin to monetary gain, at the expense of much more valuable ideals. Is there something more to your recent actions? Or was it a momentary lapse in judgment? This week, fix whatever’s wrong: our perceptions or your actions.

Us non-Sags need help letting go. We’ve come to you because you’re as close to an expert on the subject as we’ve got. Surely, you have some amazing tricks up your sleeve in this department. We’re hopeless. Even when we know release is the only choice, sometimes we just keep hanging on. What should we do when desire overwhelms rationality? How do you let go when you really don’t want to? This week, you’re the teacher, imparting this crucial skill to those of us in need of it. What’s your secret? Clue us in, won’t you?