Some Things a Man Might Consider Doing Before Snuffing It, Part One

I have a very long list of regrets (Things a Human Needs To Know; Things I Should Have Done Differently Looking Back in Anger; Horrible Things Never to Be Repeated) and so here is Part One in a preemptive strike.  

• Learn to palm a basketball.  Perhaps dunk the palmed basketball.
• Save somebody from a sinking ship or a burning building.  Save somebody from a burning ship and you might not have to palm a basketball.
• Build your own home, if only to learn how hard it is to build one's own home.  Use the environment as an aesthetic and avoid electrics on principal/for safetysake.  If you're doing this in the City, ready a couple of one-liners for the crowd. 
• Learn a magic trick that's a bit more compelling than Got-Your-Nose or There's-A-Quarter-in-Your-Ear.  You will be faced with bored five year olds (they're all bored) and you could do worse than show them something they've never seen.  Perhaps you could actually remove your nose and then pull it out of their ears.  That is certain to delight.
• Avoid the martial arts.  If you're dressed in a karate costume because you want to appear tougher, you've already made your first mistake.  
• Watch as many martial arts movies as humanly possible.  If you get in a conversation with another man that moves beyond sports scores, insert your knowledge here.  Plus, the Wong Fei Hung films stand on their own.  
• Have some facial hair for a period of your life.  This could go well with your magic trick or interest in kung fu. 
• Busk. 
• Grumblingly, miserably, pettily, but eventually admit you were wrong about some things. 
• Memorize a good poem of decent length.  I'm working on one by Philip Larkin, but I'm beginning to regret carrying it around in my head.  Try one of Shakespeare's sonnets.  
• Don't kill mice.  It's much tougher to go about your business knowing one is on the prowl rather than gluing something a thousandth the size of you to a trap.  The bubonic plague was started by marmots in actuality.  Kill marmots.  
• Know how to cook.  People who can't cook for themselves -- cereal does not count -- should be left to fend for themselves and be refused service at even the worst restaurants.  Use butter in excess, that's my advice.  
• Loose a startling amount of money and then win it all back.  I've heard this advice elsewhere and agree with it with one major caveat: remember the sentence order.  That's quite important.