JUST ANOTHER DAY?

If you remember your Geography, you’ll remember learning that every fourth year has an extra day. Maybe you even remember why (though many of us don’t). Like most things in Geography, it has to do with the earth’s movement around the sun. Cosmic things happen somehow, and we get February the 29th.

We could see it as nothing more than just another day. Another day to sit in traffic, go to work, and then go home and complain that there’s nothing to watch on any of our three hundred channels.

Or we could see it as a gift. An amazing opportunity. A whole extra day to do so many things. Where do we even start?

Well, how often do we all complain that there isn’t enough time to do stuff? Now’s our chance - February 29 could be the day we’ve been waiting for. So, clean out the garage already. Or sort through that pile of papers on the kitchen counter. Or put away the suitcases that have been lying in the passage since the December holidays.

Or... how about a few things that would be way more fun?

1. Follow the loadshedding schedule and hop from region to region, so you can experience 24 hours of perpetual darkness.
2. Alphabetise all the books on your bookshelf. Or organise them according to colour. Or arrange them so all the first words of all the books come together to form a sentence.
3. Sort through the pictures on your phone and actually print them. Then see how many rooms you can fill if you use them as wallpaper.
4. Reply to every spam email you’ve ever received with a nice, thoughtful note.
5. Talk to every random person who phones you from a call centre. But really talk to them, about life and stuff.
6. Make jam. That probably takes a whole day.
7. Put on every item of clothing you own, one by one.
8. Actually watch your three hundred channels and see whether there’s really “nothing on”.
9. Read a book. From start to finish.
10. Do a 24-hour social media cleanse. (Don’t even touch that phone...)
11. In case Valentine’s Day didn’t go so great, use 29 Feb as a do-over.
12. Play as many tennis matches as you can fit into a day. Or play one round of golf - that takes about the same amount of time.
13. Phone those people you never get around to phoning.
14. And seriously, clean the garage.

Live your dreams. Declutter your life. Create memories that will still be with you in four years, and in twenty-four years. Do something that your future self will thank you for.

Or just treat it like another Thursday, when not much happens and that’s okay too. If you don’t have the energy to make 29 February the Greatest Day Ever, there’s always 2028.