Mars in Capricorn

You made a five-year plan when you were nineteen. You are running about a year ahead of it.

Exalted

The tradition exalts Mars in Capricorn: here the planet is most honoured and does its best work. It seems an odd match at first: the hot planet of force in a cold, careful earth sign ruled by Saturn. But force without a plan wastes itself, and Saturn gives Mars the plan. Here the fighter becomes the general, the one who reads the ground before anyone moves and keeps something back for the second day. Your drive is controlled, aimed and patient, and it does not waste a single blow.

The climb

You set a goal and you walk toward it, a step at a time, for as long as it takes. Setbacks slow you but rarely stop you. You work harder than people realise, some of it while they are asleep, and you would rather be respected than liked, though in time you are usually both.

You take on responsibility early and you carry it well, without complaint and without needing anyone to notice the weight. People trust you with the hard job because you don’t make a drama of it, and because it gets done.

Temper under control

You rarely lose your temper in public. Anger, for you, goes into effort: the extra hour, the better result, the quiet decision to prove someone wrong. When you do let it out, it is cold rather than hot, and people who have seen it do not forget.

Your desire is serious and lasting. You show it late and hold it steady once shown, and a person earns your trust by what they do over years, never by what they say on one night.

All work

The danger is that the climb becomes the whole of life. You can treat rest as weakness and joy as a reward for later, and later keeps moving. You can be hard on people who don’t work the way you do, and harder still on yourself.

When you look back from where you have got to, the whole route is visible, every step of it, and there is not one you took by accident.