I want to be a person who’s keeping good records, who’s not letting the events of my life pass without memorializing them. But regular journaling often feels like busy work. Which is why I prefer a list. A list is lighter, more accessible — dare I say more fun? A simple record of things I want to remember: clothes I wore, people I saw, what was on my mind.
Lists are a tool to make sense of the world. We’re all (too) familiar with the to-do list, the grocery list, the bucket list: stuff meant to be crossed off and dispensed with. I also like keeping lists as archives (say, a compilation of Movies I Watched This Month), as celebrations (Favorite Breakfasts This Year), as reflections (Things I Worried About That Never Came to Pass).
When I’m overwhelmed, I make a list of everything that’s bothering me. I’ve made lists of funny things people said last night at dinner, the books that shaped me, the sweetest dogs I’ve met. Once you have a list, you can often see order in what seemed like chaos when it was running around off-leash in your brain.
We’re surrounded by “best” lists, and they have their place (thank you, best books and films of the 21st century). But I prefer a “good” list. In a world of bests, good is a relief. Best invites an argument; good is just a suggestion: Here is this thing. I think you’ll probably like it. Good is generous: This is one good thing; others welcome. You want to spend time with good. It says, Look, I am not making any claims to being the one and only. I’m not promising forever. Let’s hang out and see where this goes.
I keep a good list because I know how much easier it is to complain or despair over what’s bad, what’s missing, what we wish were different. And let’s be clear: There’s plenty to be sad or cross or dissatisfied about. We shouldn’t stop wrestling with those things or trying to change them when we can. But there’s got to be more.
A similar principle animates “Every Brilliant Thing,” an interactive play now starring Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway — our critic Helen Shaw described it as “an openhearted show about naming and noticing the good.”
I used to think it was silly or sappy to write down the things that I love. But once you start doing it, once you start deliberately taking time out of your day to write down things that are good, you start noticing them everywhere.
This week: The surprisingly refreshing Arnold Palmer in a can that I had with lunch. Jim Broadbent’s restrained, big-hearted performance in the 2010 Mike Leigh film “Another Year,” which I just watched. The way my green sweater looked with the black and white striped shirt. The song “Something’s Going On,” by Lambchop. Tiny things, but they each brought a little bit of joy into my life.
Once you start tracking what’s good, you notice you feel good. Not all the time. Not so much that you lose your edge. But enough that you start to feel a little more balanced. If we want to be happy — a state that’s become so overhyped and overanalyzed as to become almost meaningless, but stay with me — we need to orient ourselves toward the good.
I’ve been doing a bit of this here in The Morning on Saturdays for the past four years. And now we’ve decided to expand the franchise. Starting Wednesday, I’ll be making my good lists public in a new weekly newsletter.
The Good List will provide exactly what it says on the tin: a list of good things. It won’t be a Pollyanna’s bright-siding of a bad situation — regular readers know me better than that — but, rather, a cleareyed accounting of the very serious business of cataloging some reasons we’re lucky to be alive right now.
The first edition contains a poet’s intentions for March, a delightful typewriter experiment and a secret flower of spring. It’s not a ranking, just a tidy way of organizing disparate elements that share one important quality: They are, broadly speaking, good.
The Good List is, finally, an invitation, extended with both confidence and humility: What things have you found that are validating, life-affirming, mind-opening, satisfying? This is a project of addition rather than elimination. It’s a conversation: The thing I love and the thing you love can sit side by side, and so from time to time, we’ll include your submissions in the List. Looking for the good is an eternal pursuit — and that’s exactly the point.
Sign up here to get The Good List sent to your inbox — and, if you please, share this with those who could use a little good in their lives.
Music
-
A half-century ago, George Clinton debuted a $500,000 spaceship that turned his live concerts into intergalactic journeys. Read the secret history of the P-Funk Mothership.
-
It’s called “sync music,” and you hear it everywhere — YouTube videos, TikTok tutorials, even Super Bowl commercials. The Times Magazine met the people who make it.
More Culture
CULTURE CALENDAR
📺 “The Madison” (Saturday): It is hard to swing a lariat these days without snaring a new Taylor Sheridan show. This year has already brought one “Yellowstone” spinoff, “Marshals,” with another (“The Dutton Ranch”) likely to premiere in the fall. In the meantime, there is “The Madison,” a stand-alone Paramount+ series most notable for enticing Michelle Pfeiffer into a rare television role. She stars as a Manhattan socialite who trades the Big Apple for Big Sky country after a personal tragedy. In her silk separates, she finds solace in open spaces — and handles a wasp-infested outhouse. Beau Garrett and Elle Chapman co-star as her citified adult daughters.
RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Spicy Tomato Coconut Bisque
Yewande Komolafe’s spicy tomato coconut bisque, filled with plump pink shrimp and earthy mushrooms, is a fragrant, deeply flavored meal for a chilly, almost-spring weekend. Spiked with lime zest and grated fresh ginger for vibrancy and heat, the creamy coconut broth is sweetened with roasted red peppers and tomatoes, which condense as everything simmers. Serve it with white or brown rice or crusty bread to tame its delightfully forthright heat.
The Hunt: A family moving to Chicago from Texas wanted to close a deal on a new home before the school year started. What did they find? Play our game.
What you get for $650,000 in Belize: A three-bedroom villa in a gated community; a two-bedroom cottage with a loft and a private pool; and a new beachfront condo.
Redecorating: TMZ announced that Donna Kelce, the mother of Jason and Travis, decided to remodel her Florida home. The internet had thoughts.
LIVING
On the runways: The audacious trend at this year’s fall fashion shows? Clothes that regular people might actually wear.
Inspiration: Interior design magazines are reinventing themselves for a new generation of décor enthusiasts.
Ozempic immunity: GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are quickly changing Americans’ health. For about 1 in 10 people, though, they have little to no effect.
ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER
The best spring gifts
The winters of my childhood in Maine did not play. From Thanksgiving until Easter, the flurries were flurrying, the snowbanks were towering and the no-school days were aplenty. This winter felt like another one of those, which means that when spring comes (Friday, baby!) we’ve earned it. No matter what the season looks like this year — colorless and cold, drizzly and vibey, twinkling and bright — my vow is to embrace every minute. One of my favorite ways to do that is by rekindling relationships that may have been on ice after a winter of hibernation, and marking the reunion with small, just-because tokens. Here are a few particularly delightful, spring-inspired gifts I’ve been eyeing lately. — Hannah Morrill
GAME OF THE WEEK
March Madness. Clear your schedule, cancel your plans, call out sick. The N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments are back. Tomorrow is Selection Sunday, when the men’s and women’s brackets will be revealed. The play-in rounds start Tuesday for the men, Wednesday for the women, and after that the madness begins, with games running from noon until night.
We’ll have brackets and expert guides on Monday. Until then, here’s one thing to know about each tournament.
The men’s field: Duke and Michigan have sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the sport. Even for such storied programs, these teams look special. Michigan, according to The Athletic’s Austin Meek, is the best squad in Big 10 history. But Duke got the better of the Wolverines when they played in February, thanks to the best player in the country, the freshman Cameron Boozer.
The women’s field: Surprise, surprise — UConn is great again. The Huskies were undefeated, with an average margin of victory of nearly 40 points. Get familiar with Sarah Strong, who is already in the pantheon of UConn greats.
Discussion about this post