There are things every one of us should do at least once a year – if only to remind ourselves that we are alive. Remember who you used to be, get a good babysitter – if you need one, that is, and let the games begin.

• Go for a long walk in the rain – who cares if your underwear gets soaked?
• Go away for a weekend, but don’t decide on a destination beforehand. Just get in the car and see where it takes you.
• Go and watch two movies in one day and have a pizza and some wine in between. Read all your old love letters.
• Get up early and watch the sun rise.
• Go to an outdoor symphony concert.
• Phone an old friend you have not spoken to for ages.
• Wear something outrageous and different to what you would usually wear.
• Reread your three favourite poems and books – preferably in bed or in front of a fire.
• Go for a long walk next to the ocean.
• Swim when it is raining.
• Buy something you don’t need at all, but would like to have anyway.
• Phone an old boyfriend on his birthday.
• Let the dog sleep under the duvet on a really cold night.
• Talk through the night to someone you really care about and only go to sleep when the birds start chirping.
• Invite the nice new person at work for dinner – don’t just promise to do it.
• Eat oranges and broccoli and chocolate fudge and boerewors for supper – just because that’s what you feel like.
• Go and see a play or a live concert.
• Spend an hour on the phone to your best friend gossiping about someone you know, preferably your boss or your mother-in-law.
• Have a picnic.
• Go to a restaurant you have never been to before.
• Go for a massage or aromatherapy.
• Watch the sunset.
• Ask your hairdresser what he would like to do with your hair.
• Use some of your hard-earned savings and suddenly decide to go and see your friend in Milan or Kimberley or Marrakesh.
• Learn to let the dishes stand for a day.
• Sign up for singing lessons, dancing lessons, or judo classes, or paper marbling, or live drawing, or writing classes, or Tai Chi.
• Put in suddenly for a day’s leave and go camping in the wilds or in a nature reserve for a long weekend (no toddlers in nappies allowed on this trip – that’s what grandparents are for).
• Go to a nursery and buy some plants, even if they are for the balcony of your flat.
• Go to the local tourist information bureau and pretend for one weekend that you are a tourist in your hometown. Visit the museum, climb the mountain, visit a goldmine, or crocodile ranch, or take a township tour.
• Invite ten very dissimilar people to a dinner party. Drink a tranquiliser beforehand.
• Commit one hour a week of your time towards helping others in some way – whether volunteering at a community organisation or visiting your mother’s aunt in an old-age home.
• Buy flowers for yourself.
• Go out for the evening and say “Expect me when you see me” as you leave.

- (Susan Erasmus, Health24)