What Our Names Mean

Here's one of my father's classic jokes--so there's this woman named Sally Lipshits and she decided to change her name. Do you know what she changed it to? Suzy Lipshits. It's funny how names seem to own a person, as if there is some requirement that comes with them. A roll we fill without even knowing it. My name means brave and I suppose I am and have been all my life whether I wanted to or not. I knew a guy who only ever dated girls named Jennifer. It's not like he went around asking people their names and upon meeting a Jennifer, pursuing her. He'd just have some attraction only to find out after that her name was...Jennifer. Clearly people named Jennifer have a certain personality he's drawn to. Every Greg I have ever met is easy-going, almost impossible to anger. What a strange thing--that we become the meaning of our names. It's the same with horoscopes, a phenomenon that occurs before we are aware of what it means. I'm a Libra and all my life I have sought balance--long before I knew what a horoscope was. It seems almost preposterous, impossible that the month we are born to defines our personalities in any way at all. But it does. It's as if whatever goes on in the ever is playing some joke on us, or else giving us some nudge, a hint that there is some energy beyond our knowing that is so great as to make us predestined to be a certain type. And the world needs all kinds. If only we could figure out a way to work together.