Book of Daze Attempt to Meditate Day
“Quiet your mind … unless it has something really urgent to say.”
This holiday was founded in 2005 by tech burnout-turned-wellness-evangelist Miranda Plimpton after she had tried to meditate for five minutes and ended up rage-punching a decorative gong.
“My goddamn mind wouldn’t shut up,” she wrote in her now-deleted LiveJournal post. “I closed my eyes and immediately remembered every mistake I’ve made since 1998.” The internet responded with thousands of comments and one unifying message: same.
Miranda’s attempt went viral, and so August 22 became a day for people everywhere to sit down, close their eyes, and immediately be ambushed by a mental PowerPoint of unpaid bills, social faux pas, and the moment their ex said, “You’re a lot.”
National Attempt to Meditate Day is for the spiritually curious but easily distracted. It’s the only holiday that recommends both silence and screaming into a couch pillow.
Recommended practices for this day include: downloading seven meditation apps but using none of them; lighting sage and promptly choking on it; sitting cross-legged for forty-two seconds before checking your phone “just to see the time.”
The record holder is Craig M. of Boulder, CO, who reportedly managed a full eleven minutes of uninterrupted mindfulness before remembering he left his oven on.
Actress and lifestyle mystic Gwyneth Paltrow supports this holiday. “I love that people are trying,” she said. “Even if your inner peace has ADHD, at least you’re aligning with your higher chaos.”
Most participants conclude their session by giving up and deciding to “just journal instead,” which quickly devolves into listing reasons why they’re bad at journaling.
Official merchandise includes a branded candle called “Stillness Panicâ„¢” and a stress ball shaped like Buddha covering his ears.
National Attempt to Meditate Day reminds us that sometimes the real mindfulness is admitting that your mind is a howling monkey in a wind chime factory–and maybe that’s enlightenment too.
(Meditation not working? Skip the guilt trip and embrace National Cancel Plans Day.)
Browse the full Book of Daze
Find Us Elsewhere
X (Twitter)