Zodiac signs are unreliable, based off suggestion

Zodiac signs and astrology are considered by many people to be able to tell predictions of future events and share the compatibility between two people, for either a friendship or romantic relationship. However, these signs have no bearings on real life and only appear to be accurate due to intense generalizations and predicting events. By keeping the predictions and compatibilities vague, zodiac signs are able to apply to anyone who is looking to match their sign to their personality. 

One of the most used and listened to uses of zodiac signs and astrology is predictions of how days, weeks, months, or even years will go. While it is possible to see how a prediction is ‘proven right’ after the day, this connection is only seen due to people wanting to find a connection to the prediction and real life. When making these predictions, writers keep it purposely vague, and do not include any details into what prediction they are trying to make. This makes it so nearly any prediction can be applied to some aspect of anyone’s day, giving the illusion that the prediction was correct, when it fact it could have been applied to anyone that attempted to correlate to their day. 

Another common use of astrology is looking for compatibility between romantic partners or friendships. Again, when writing compatibilities, they are kept vague, or written as it may work for a while, but then it will fall apart. This second type of prediction can once again be applied to nearly any relationship. Nearly any romantic relationship or friendship will have a peaceful period where the people in the relationship feel no reason to fight, but eventually nearly all friendships or romantic relationships eventually have a fight, ‘proving’ the prediction of the zodiac signs correct. This is not truly proving anything because nearly all relationships will fit this mold eventually, no matter what the astrology signs of the participants are. 

The final way zodiac signs are used is looking for traits and characteristics that are true of different people within a sign. As previously stated, these traits are often kept very vague or nonconcrete, using phrases such as: even if one often keeps these feeling on the inside, some people may feel this trait more strongly than others, or most people of this sign feels this. This makes it so even if the vague description given doesn’t match a particular person, the phrase before makes a person feel like they are just the minority that does not fit into that particular trait. This again negates the idea that all people of a certain zodiac sign feel a certain trait, but the descriptions are vague and people can be easily considered an outcast of that group. 

People believe in zodiac signs, not because of their reliability, but because people want an easy way to classify other people’s personalities and want a belief in an outside source which can cause these personalities. Being able to categorize and process ideas and thoughts that are foreign to a particular person makes accepting and understanding these ideas easier for said person. Astrology and zodiac signs offer an easy way to categorize other people into areas that are easy to understand but are not considered offensive. These categories allow people to better understand how someone else may feel, and also explains why a particular person may believe or experience something another person does not.  

While these explanations of predictions, compatibility, and character traits may be vague enough to make all people of a particular sign feel they belong, they do not make everyone feel as if it can apply to them, if they fall outside of the zodiac sign’s date window. This allows for people to feel as if they can categorize nearly all people into easy to understand boxes. Luckily, these categories do not degrade or belittle people and therefore they are socially acceptable, even though they are not true.