This is a totally made up day by some dude at the National Day Calendar outfit. I feel like maybe he didn’t have anything to put on the calendar and just said, “OK, this is a nice concept.”

And it is, although I find it a bit hazy. The basic premise is that every day above ground is a good one and a chance to be better. That part is fine. But the rest of the suggestions are sort of contradictory. Embrace new beginnings, OR accept failures and try again. These do not seem like the same thing to me. The adage is not “If at first you don’t succeed, try again—or, ya know, give up and do something else, whatever.” I can see the point of not throwing good money after bad, but I also kinda think quitting shouldn’t be a first approach.

I realize that the decision to start over vs. start anew comes entirely down to context. If you love basketball but are 5-foot-nothing, chances are you should not count on playing as a profession.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a basketball-adjacent vocation. 

That said, we have quit a lot of things in this family—and made fresh starts. I got hired and quit a lot of jobs in my time. I tried on a lot of relationships and quit on them when things went south. Then I met my husband, and that one stuck. I tried and opted out of playing sports. (And so did my kid.) Then my husband showed me some appeal in golf—and now that he is retired, I am taking a shot at trying to enjoy not only being bad at it but maybe getting a teeny bit better at it.

We are a family of writers. The hubs wrote a book and got shot down. He wrote another one and got it published—and three more after that. I tried and failed to find a publisher for a couple stories I wrote and really liked. I put them away. I wrote a different book and got it published. I am working a novel now that might have a shot. We’ll see where it goes. The kid is working on his first novel. I hope it succeeds, but if it doesn’t, I know he’ll try something else.

What’s something you quit on and wish you hadn’t? Today’s the day to think about revisiting it!