In this exciting and comensurably exhausting time of year, many witness the peaceful end of yet another year as the droning madness of the holidays come to a close.

It offers time for that oft-anticipated retrospective glance over the shoulder, and provides an elusive opportunity for people to combine hindsight with their conscience to find new and creative ways to punish themselves during the next year. Resolutions.

So many see New Year’s as a celebration, only to turn around and attempt to deprive themselves of something they apparently enjoy. What about using this as an opportunity to enrich the experience of living, rather than just prolonging it?

As she lay dying in the hospital from cancer, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was reported as having said, “If I’d known I was going to die like this, I wouldn’t have done all those damn sit-ups.” Remember the famous last words of John Maynard Keynes: “I wish I’d drunk more champagne.” Besides, what could be more unsettling than finding one’s self at the end of one’s life, having not really lived?

Remember to indulge. Remember to enjoy being alive yet another year. Do something different. Create something original. Experience the unexperienced. See the unseen. After all, you’re not dead, right?