Identifying oneself has never been so complicated since the unexpected zodiac change was announced on Thursday, Jan. 13.Facebook statuses and Tweets mentioned panic after Minnesota astrologer, Parke Kunkle, spoke about changing the zodiac in an interview. According to a Harris Poll from fox8.com, 31 percent of Americans believe in the zodiac. People were confused if they still carried the signs they were born into or if it was wrong since it was first created.

“We are who we are,” Juliana Wagner, freshman from LaPlace, said. “We can not change who we are all of a sudden.”

The change was due to the earth wobbling on its axis. The alignment of the sun and the unsteady earth caused the signs to shift. According to nydailynews.com, the Earth wobbled enough to allow a new constellation to take place in the zodiac. This was how the new zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, came to be. The sign upholds the traits of the Egyptian Imhotep and the biblical dreamer Joseph.

“I think it is unnecessary because all the other signs were meant to be from animals and symbols,” Whitney Martin, freshman from New Orleans, said. “The new sign messes up the order of the zodiac.”

According to orovillemr.com, the new sign is for people born between Nov. 29 through Dec. 17, the original time of Sagittarians and Capricorns.

The current generation questions if the new zodiac will effect its relationship with future generations.

“The changes are going to make things complicated in the future,” Joshua Henderson, junior from New Orleans, said. “People in the next generation will have conflicts of identifying with people in the generation now.”

Walter Mercado, psychic and astrologer, settled the fear of those who questioned the new change.

“The traditional dates of the zodiac remain the same,” Marcado said. “The new sign does not agree with how the zodiac signs are classified in the West.”

According to miamiherald.com, the signs were changed only for the Hindu astrology called Jyotish, which follows peoples’ relationship with the stars. It does not affect the zodiac that the Western culture has been following for centuries, which is based on peoples’ relationship to the sun.

With this information, it is learned that many peoples’ fears of zodiac signs changing for themselves or future generations are unfounded. People do not have to fret about removing zodiac tattoos or changing their personality. They can continue to read their horoscopes under their original sign, because this new alignment does not affect the Western belief in the zodiac.