by Michael Maciel

The Greek word for planet is “planítis,” which means “wanderer.” The reason they called them that is because they appear to “wander” amongst the fixed stars of the Zodiac.

Each one of us is a planet—we all orbit the Sun. We all work out our karma as we work our way through the myriad complexities of our astrological milieu.

But as every astrologer knows, each encounter is a choice—we can either submit and call it fate, or we can step up and call it destiny. The choice is ours.

And that choice constitutes our aim. Submitting to fate is the failure to aim. How can you hit the target if you’re not even aiming at it? You’re bound to miss the mark.

But aiming (and aiming rightly) is what the mind is for. What is life if not a learning process? And how can we learn if we don’t remember what works and what doesn’t?

That takes thought. It takes weighing the pros and cons of every important action. We work things out in mind before we act on them so that our impulsiveness doesn’t kill us. Trial balloons are expendable. We are not.

Sin, as it turns out, isn’t just “missing the mark.” It’s more like not making the effort to find a proper target. If our aim is to merely seek pleasure and avoid pain, then we’re choosing the path of least resistance. But if it’s soul development we’re after, then we seek the high road, even if it involves pain. 

And that takes thought. Careful, deliberate, well-reasoned thought.

As Buddha pointed out, suffering is caused by ignorance. And what is ignorance but lazy thinking? Or thoughtlessness? Or not wanting to be bothered with nuance?

Aiming takes thought—careful analysis of elevation (trajectory), crosswind (bias), and objective (values). These things don’t happen by accident. They have to be worked out in advance. And that takes planning. And, of course, trial and error. Lots of that!