The Biggest Pleasant Surprise Coming To You This Year (Zodiac Edition)

Aries

A newborn being will enter your life. It may be a human baby—one that you had a role in creating, a new niece or nephew, or simply a friend’s infant—who fills your life with the wonder of creation and brings you back to a time of unblemished innocence, effortless charm, and the joy of caring for a small and helpless creature. It may be a pet—a kitten, puppy, or maybe even an itty-bitty hamster or tiny goldfish. But you will find that this newborn being enriches your life in multiple ways and brings you back to a more innocent time when you, too, were helpless, dependent, and irresistibly cute.

Taurus

Romance will swoop in like a March wind and sweep you off your feet. It won’t necessarily be in March, or even in the springtime, but when you least expect it, the flames of love will be fanned in your cynical heart. If you’re currently involved with someone, an unexpected event will strengthen and renew the bond that has already been forged between you. If you’ve given up on romance, all it might take to give you hope again is a stranger’s wry smile and sly wink from across the produce aisle at the grocery store. But something will happen this year that will make you realize why poetry exists and why so many popular songs are about falling in love.

Gemini

There will be a sudden, unexpected upswing in your finances. It could happen in a number of ways, all of which seem magical. Maybe an old heirloom given to you by a relative that has been gathering dust in storage gets appraised and is valued at an astronomical sum. Maybe a relative you didn’t even know existed passes away and leaves you a massive inheritance. Maybe one day on a whim you play your lucky numbers on a Lotto ticket and hit the jackpot. Maybe you find a $100 bill on the sidewalk right when you need it the most. But from now until that moment this year, you’ll be walking on a rainbow leading to a pot of gold.

Cancer

You will reconnect with someone from the past. They will reach out and make the first contact. It may be an ex-lover, an old friend, a relative, or maybe just someone you knew in school or from a previous job. The two of you may have simply drifted apart, or there may have been some unpleasant falling-out. But they will contact you seeking to make amends. Depending on the reasons for why you stopped communicating with them, you may be hesitant to patch things up and let bygones be bygones. But by all means—reconnect. It will put your current life in well-needed perspective.

Leo

You will finally learn to be comfortable with something about yourself. It may be something about your looks, your social status, an embarrassing event in your personal history, or maybe the simple fact that you always hated your last name. The breakthrough will come when you observe someone else who is physically imperfect or somehow socially undesirable but who not only “owns” it, they somehow rock it so hard that they make it attractive. You will shed a lifetime of awkwardness and self-consciousness and suddenly feel as free as a butterfly breezily flapping its wings over a field of daffodils on a sunny spring morning.

Virgo

Summer will bring a change of scenery. Whether it involves an abrupt paid vacation halfway around the world…or a brand-new workplace…or a move to another state to capitalize on a newfound business opportunity or romance…or even a kickass remodeling of your current living space…your humdrum routine will be upended. You’ll wake up every morning to see something different than you’d grown accustomed to seeing, and it will look fresh, new, clean, and beautifully invigorating.

Libra

You will realize that growing up isn’t as hard as you thought it would be. Of course, one can’t stop the body from maturing and eventually aging, but many people insist on remaining emotionally immature out of some misguided notion that being undisciplined, unorganized, and recklessly impulsive will keep them “young at heart.” In the real world, though, behaving like a child when you’re an adult will only wreck your health, your finances, and your relationships. One day this year, you’ll stop doing the things you know are bad for you the moment you feel, from your head down to your toes, that life is much easier that way.

Scorpio

Someone will be kind to you just when you need it the most. When you feel at your lowest and are bemoaning the fact that life seems unnecessarily cruel, harsh, unfair, and unforgiving, some Good Samaritan will emerge from the shadows. They may be someone close to you, or they could have even wandered all the way from Samaria—wherever that is—to help you. But whether the help comes in the form of material assistance or simply a much-needed smile and kind word, it will make all the difference. It will drag you from the depths of despair and fill you with hope. That’s when you’ll realize that there’s nothing more precious in life than someone who’s nice to you and really means it.

Sagittarius

You’ll realize how much time you waste. Does your smartphone keep alerting you to the fact that you spent more time staring at it this week than last week? Does your “To-Do” list grow longer and longer? Do you ever wind up making good on a single New Year’s resolution? Whether it’s simply by chance…or a sudden flash of insight…or an urgent situation that erupts because you’ve let a problem fester for too long…you will press the “reset” button on your priorities and start being as frugal with your time as you are with your money.

Capricorn

You’ll realize how many emotions you waste. As a wise person once said, both love and hate are far too precious to be wasted on those who don’t deserve them. At some point this year, you’ll come to appreciate that although insults never feel good, it’s also never good to obsess over them and maliciously plot your revenge. You’ll also realize that although it’s good to take care of yourself and plan to secure yourself a happy and healthy future, it’s never good to waste time worrying about something that may or may not happen. As another wise man once said, you should have the courage to change the things you actually can, the inner sense of peace to accept the things you cannot control, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

Aquarius

You will start to like someone you used to hate. It could be a family member, a coworker, or a teacher, but it’s someone with whom you’re constantly forced to deal and whom you absolutely cannot stand. But sometime this year, they’ll do something totally unexpected—show that they actually have a sense of humor, reveal that they share a similar interest as you, or merely help you out when you need some help—that will shatter the wall of ice between you and make both of your lives easier.

Pisces

You’ll realize that in many ways, the biggest obstacle to your happiness has been you. Yes, it’s an unjust world filled with hatred, brutality, deception, and unfairness. Of course there are people who’ve done you wrong and never apologized. No one is disputing the fact that if you’d grown up in a different and more nurturing environment, you’d have had an easier life and been spoon-fed opportunities that you can only dream of with seething envy. But unfortunate circumstances are one thing, whereas the “seething envy” part is your fault. Taking at least some of the blame for your own misery is a bitter pill to swallow, but once you swallow it and it takes effect, it’s better than any pharmaceutical painkiller or antidepressant.