The Little List Project: June 2026
In my essay Timing, Happiness, and Your 20’s, I wrote about a practice I started during a particularly difficult chapter of my life: keeping a running list of little things I love.
It has become one of the most important tools I have for navigating periods of clinical depression, which is something I’ve spent much of my life learning how to live alongside and push against.
The easiest way I can describe depression, in my own experience, is a gray fog settling over everything. Sometimes it hovers for a few days; sometimes for weeks.
This list began as a way of remembering what is still true when the fog returns and tries to convince me otherwise.
Some of my entries are beautifully mundane. Others feel more meaningful. Walking to work, sitting at my desk, or moving through an ordinary afternoon, I’ll find myself adding another one: the construction worker who waves at me every morning, a warm towel fresh from the dryer, the rare moment when the milk-to-coffee ratio is exactly right.
None of these things are technically “remarkable” on their own. And this isn’t a new concept by any means. That’s the point.
Together, they remind me that a good life is rarely built from huge achievements or extraordinary moments. More often, it is assembled from small beauties, fleeting connections, and the feeling of being present enough to notice them all. When the fog eventually lifts, these are the things waiting on the other side.
As the list grew, I found myself becoming interested in what might be on other people’s lists.
Not because I was looking for recommendations, but because I had started to truly believe that the things we notice and cherish reveal something essential about who we are, as humans, without knowing eachother’s stories. They are clues to what brings us back to ourselves. Tiny pieces of evidence for what makes life feel rich, meaningful, and worth paying attention to.
Over the past month, I’ve started asking people I meet during authentic moments throughout New York City and along my travels a simple question:
What’s a list of five little things you’re loving lately?
The answers have been unexpectedly revealing.
I’ve learned that a person’s favorite things often tell you more about them than the questions we’re taught to ask by society. More than what they do for work. More than where they grew up. More than the polished version of themselves they present to the world.
What delights someone. What they notice. What they return to. What makes a heavy day feel a little lighter. Those things can tell a story!
This is the first monthly installment of The Little List Project.
If my own list began as a way of finding my way through the fog, perhaps these lists can serve as little lanterns for someone else.
Everyone featured here has kindly given me permission to share.
Here are the little things people I’ve met in June have been loving lately:
