10 things to do alone on a beautiful Saturday

How much do you understand yourself?

I think I understand myself pretty well, although I don't think it's possible for someone to know everything about themselves - unless they have the exciting personality of dishwater.

Have you ever tried putting conscious effort to get to know yourself better? Do you take your preferences for granted? When you say you like or dislike something, do you know why? Have you ever been in a position where you decide on something because it's 'obvious' that's what you want. But once you made a decision, you realised that you're not really that happy with it?

Well, spending time on your own can really help you find out a lot of things about yourself. I find the most effective approach of discovering more things about yourself is to consider yourself... as your friend!

Think this way. You see someone you like. (Let's call this someone CP [Cutie Pie] to make things easy for me). You want to get closer because you know that once you know CP better, you will like him/her more! And hopefully, that person will like you more too.

So what do you do? You pick up the phone and ask CP out. You pretend to bump into CP on the streets and offer to buy CP a drink. You make a movie date. You pay attention when CP is talking to know what is always on his/her mind. You want to know CP's pet peeves, what gets CP going, what ticks CP off. You want to know everything about CP!

Now think of yourself. Have you ever taken just you yourself out for a nice treat? Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "There's no reason to go to such a nice place and get nice things - it's just me."?

If you have, then it's time to change it!

If you wake up one beautiful Saturday morning like today, and there's no one around to spend time with you, don't waste it. Don't sleep in, don't do your laundry, don't do those boring chores, and don't even think about going near that sofa and switching on the TV! Think of the nicest things possible, things that you've always wanted to do, and do it!

Below are some suggestions of things you can do when you have a whole day to yourself, but no one to spend it with.

1. Go shopping

If there's one thing I hate, I hate people waiting for me while I shop. It makes me feel like I have to rush. But now you're on your own! You can enter one shop and stay there all day long staring at a thing you like and be as indecisive as you want. You can enter 15 different shops and leave and re-enter them and leave again and not buy anything. You can pick up the most hideous top the world has ever seen and no one will be there to judge you or urge you. Only when you're alone will you discover what really like and what you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

2. Take your camera with you and go explore!

It doesn't have to be one of the 7 wonders of the world. It could be that nice little bookstore you spotted hidden behind some trees when you were driving somewhere. It could be a clump of flowers behind your neighbour's house. Or you could go to your favourite haunt and try to capture the things that make you love that place so much.

If you've moved once, you will notice that we have pictures of every place we go to except our own house. We take it for granted that we'll always live where we are and we never bother to take pictures of it.

3. Make/Build/Bake/Create something while listening to your favourite songs

You have the whole house to yourself. This is your chance to put your favourite song on repeat and you can sing out loud and dance in your underwear - no one is there to criticise you! Then once you're in the groove, decide what you want to do. You can bake a cake, try out a new recipe, try sewing that expensive dress you cannot afford, make a new table from scratch, build a computer, anything you fancy.

4. Dress up real nice and go check out that new place

When you can be comfortable in your own company, then you can enjoy being with almost anyone! You don't have to worry if that person is fun or not, nice or not, because you know there's always you to fall back on. It's not embarrassing to be alone. It shows that you're confident enough to handle things on your own. There's a new cafe and you're dying to check it out. Just wear something that makes you feel good, dab your favourite perfume and just sit there and enjoy the atmosphere.

The thing about Malaysians is, it's like people are embarrassed to dress up nicely. I LOVE looking nice. I have many nice dresses and I wear them all the time. Sometimes people look at me, probably thinking, "Why is she all dressed up?" but I don't really care. I'm not dressing up to impress anyone. I do it because it makes me happy.

5. Strike a conversation with a stranger

I do this pretty often. Obviously I don't ramble about my private life. There are plenty of things to talk about with people you don't know and they can provide pretty amazing insight and see things in a way you've never seen before. With strangers, things can get philosophical quite easily.

I did once mention a problem I couldn't solve to a stranger. I left out specific details, and only mentioned the situation. And the stranger helped me solve that problem because she didn't have any vested interest. She neither liked me nor hated me. So I could treat her opinion as something completely objective. DO practice discretion in choosing the stranger, place and topic =)

6. Find a place where you can hear yourself think and let your ideas flow

A quiet place. I'd love to say the library, but the stuffy National Library at Jalan Tun Razak isn't exactly my idea of an inspiring place. Go to a beach if you're lucky enough to live close to one. Go to a lake and if the day's not too hot, rent a boat and go to the middle of the lake and stay there. If you have a nice garden, then sit there with a nice cold drink and listen to your thoughts.

I stare into space a lot. It's not that I'm spacing out, I just do a lot of thinking and reflecting. And when I take time to carefully analyse my thoughts, I surprise myself sometimes with the way I see things. Usually I'd have a notebook and a pen so I can write down things anytime I want.

7. Pick up a guitar (or any musical instrument) and play it

If you don't know how to play one, then learn. People who can play musical instruments are sexy. It is also easier to make friends because you have a topic for conversation.

When I'm bored out of my wits, I just pick a song that I really like and try to learn it on my guitar. I love the guitar because it sounds great and it's portable and super sexy.

8. Write/Draw/Paint/Sculpt

I think most people have an artistic side. And how would you know for sure that you're not artistic if you don't at least give it a go?

So take out a huge cheap canvas and pour your heart out! Remember, you're alone, so you can paint or draw or sculpt whatever you fancy and no one will be there to make tsk-tsk-ing sounds. If you hate the result you can try again, or you can burn it and never do it ever again.

Expressing yourself in creative ways is the best way to understand yourself (or confuse yourself more). I've always been artistic, and even the way I think is abstract sometimes. So when I express myself in pictures and strange words, I find a little bit more of myself in concrete form because it's right there in the physical world - I just made it, brought it to life - on a piece of paper. It's a piece of me. Nevermind if you have no clue what you just created. If your sculpture looks like a cucumber, then maybe you have a fetish for cucumbers. Go figure.

9. Go volunteer for a day

There are plenty of places that need volunteers. You don't have to go to Africa or Central America, just look for local ones. I volunteered with EPIC once and found myself in a Kampung Orang Asli in Kuala Kubu Bharu. I intend to do it again when I have the time.

There are many things to do as a volunteer. You can help poor people, sick people, animals, conserve the environment, spread a message. If you simply cannot find an organisation you can identify with, then think of something that moves you and do something small scale. A YouTube video, a poster (make sure it's biodegradable), a street performance, anything that gets attention. Try to avoid the prison, some people get sensitive when they see large crowds.

10. Do some sports

Run, swim, cycle, box, climb. Physical activity is a great way to know yourself better. You find out what you're good at and what you lack. You find out what you need to work on and what you need to slow down on. And while we're busy doing physical activities, it leaves our mind open for a private discussion with... ourselves.

When I run, I find myself saying, "Just a bit more, let's just get to that tree and then you can stop running." And when I reach that tree I go, "I'm just kidding, you can stop running at the next bend." I talk to myself like that until I'm completely exhausted and I start laughing by myself.

The list can go on and on. But 10 is a nice number.

I don't remember ever being afraid of being alone. When I was little, both my parents were busy working and my second brother and I were often alone in that big house.

Actually it's not that the house was big, it just felt big because I was so small and it was so empty, save for my brother and I and the furniture around the house.

Unlike our friends, we lived far away from school. We couldn't walk or cycle to school to see our friends whenever we wanted. So we had to make do with each other's company and the things around the house.

My second brother taught me to ride the bicycle and play the badminton. I guess he was that bored so he became really patient and was determined to make me learn all that so I could play with him. And learn I did. And play I did.

We would cycle around the area and I would pretend like I was on a great adventure. We also played a lot of Lego and card games and video games. And if we get into a fight, we'd find our own things to do. I'd bury myself in books and drawing and going around the house catching butterflies and releasing them and catching them again and releasing them again. When I'm bored of that, I make friends with cats or try to get as close to a bird as possible.

I guess, growing up this way, away from all my school friends, I learned to do things alone. In school, it used to puzzle me why girls have to go to the toilet in a group. During recess time, people could cry if there's no one to go to the canteen with them.

So, I am actually thankful for all that alone time. Because I was alone quite often, I find things to do. I found time to learn to play the guitar. I found time to draw. I also found the courage to speak to strangers because sometimes I really do want friends. There was this Caucasian girl who stayed around my house and she was around my age. Her name's Bianca. We were good friends and did a lot of things together. And then she had to move again. I was sad for a while, but I quickly found other things to do.

Now it doesn't really matter if there are people around or not. I can enjoy myself either way.

And today, I am here at my favourite cafe again because no one's at home. I spent quality time on my own, listening to great music, with no one bothering me, writing this and watching a movie on my laptop and drawing things in my sketchbook. I can be fickle, I can be lazy, I can change my mind, I ordered my favourite drink and ignored everyone else.

What a lovely Saturday today turned out to be.

Oh, and I'm wearing a nice dress =3