Internet addiction has risen to epidemic proportions in China. In early 2009, psychologists in Shandong province began offering an alleged cure that involved the use of electro-shock therapy. Parents of 3,000 young people paid Dr. Yang Yongxin and his team over $800 a month to hook their anesthetized teens up to machines that sent electricity through their brains to induce artificial seizures. After four months, the Chinese government intervened and halted the treatment, noting that there was no evidence it worked.

This practice might sound comically barbaric to you, but I think it has a certain resemblance to the way you have been dealing with your own flaws and excesses: with inordinate force. In the coming weeks, I really think it's important not to punish yourself for any reason, Pisces, even if it's in a supposedly good cause. The lesson of the Chinese experiment is: not only is it overkill, it also doesn't even have the desired effect.

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