It’s National Quitter’s Day! How Will You Celebrate?

Pro tip: Use post-it notes to decorate!

If you haven’t heard, January 19th has been named National Quitters Day. Some people say it’s even earlier, the second Friday of January, while others think it’s not until mid-February that we are most likely to scrap our hopes and dreams for the new year. Clearly this isn’t a scientific study, but the message is clear: we aspire for too much, we give up too easily, we’re never going to make it.

Let’s just acknowledge that the first few weeks of the year are actually pretty tough. There’s the come-down from the holidays, quickly followed by the pressure to rise up to the demands of the imaginary fresh palette, the snow-white slate of another 365 days. The promise of year-long resolutions, made in the spirit of hope, abandoned in the crucible of despair, creates the sense that we fail ourselves regularly.

Of course, all of this is contrived. In the Western world we get worked up about the start of the Gregorian calendar. But what about the resolutions you could have made last February 1st on Chinese New Year? What will you commit to starting on March 21st, Nowruz, the Iranian New Year? In fact, new years are happening literally all year long, from Ugaadhi to Rosh Hashanah, depending on your religion, culture and connection to the movements of the sun and the moon. So everyone calm down a little.