tiny things that actually made my life emotionally richer
one of the strangest things about being human is how quickly we get used to things. the dream job becomes another day at work, the butterflies become the relationship. the new home eventually becomes your four walls. the local café you once romanticised becomes somewhere you order your usual without thinking twice. life has a habit of turning extraordinary things into ordinary ones simply because they happen every day. what once felt exciting and shiny becomes familiar, then normal, then part of the background. perhaps that’s why we can spend years wanting something, finally get it, and almost forget to notice that we did.
which would be fine if ordinary life didn’t make up most of life. but it does. most of our existence happens on random wednesdays, making dinner, answering messages, walking the dog, driving to appointments, folding laundry, buying toothpaste. adulthood rewards efficiency, and many of us have become incredibly good at keeping everything moving. but a rich life is rarely built from milestones alone, it’s often built from tiny things nobody else would consider important; making your coffee exactly how you like it in the chipped mug you love, watering the plants that somehow have their own little routine now, putting the duvet cover back on after washing it and knowing you'll sleep well that night, the smell of garlic and onions filling the kitchen while dinner cooks.
moments, not milestones, are often where the feeling of being alive actually lives. here are ten tiny ways to make ordinary life feel a little richer, more memorable, and more like your own. essentially, the little things that stopped my life feeling like one long blur of work, errands and waiting for the weekend.
1. give your life recurring characters
adulthood can be surprisingly anonymous, but there's something deeply comforting about being recognised in the small places you return to again and again. the barista who asks how your week has been before you've even ordered, the woman at the bakery who remembers your obsession with focaccia, the neighbour who waves from the garden every saturday morning. becoming a regular somewhere gives life recurring characters, and every good story needs recurring characters.
2. use the fancy cup
for reasons nobody has adequately explained, coffee tastes better out of a cup you really like. i can't explain this and i won't be taking questions. maybe it's a heavy, wonky glass one that throws little rainbows across your coffee table, the slightly ridiculous one you fell in love with, or the beautiful matching set you bought for guests, then somehow forgot that you were allowed to use too. adulthood has a habit of convincing us to save certain things for later. the expensive candle, the beautiful notebook, the fancy plates. meanwhile, later has a habit of never quite arriving. use the fancy glass today. the occasion is you.
3. keep a pocket obsession
there is something oddly life-giving about being disproportionately interested in something that doesn't matter very much. a bird you're trying to identify. old hollywood scandals, even older postcards. finding the best cinnamon bun in your city. learning everything there is to know about moths. every child seems to have a phase where they become unusually invested in something; dinosaurs. horses. space. ancient egypt. adulthood tends to replace these with taxes and email. everything needs a practical payoff. a pocket obsession rebels against this logic. it exists for no reason other than curiosity, which might be one of the richest reasons to do anything.
4. document the life you actually lived
most people only capture the highlight reel, but some of my favourite photos are completely ordinary ones. the view from my teenage bedroom window, 8r old me hugging the dog i loved like another sister. decades from now, you won't only want the birthdays and holidays. you'll want your average monday when you were 29, the coat you wore everywhere, the cookies you baked one rainy afternoon and the way your first flat looked before you packed it all into boxes. document the life you actually lived. future-you will treasure it far more than you realise.
5. make movie night sacred again
pick one evening a week or month and protect it. work your way through the classics, every nancy meyers or hitchcock film, all the harry potters, forgotten 90s rom-coms or every best picture winner. keep a running list, make popcorn, keep your phone in another room and let the film be the whole evening instead of something happening in the background while everyone scrolls. there was a time when this wasn’t a recommendation, it was simply how people watched films. now it feels almost indulgent. perhaps that’s why it feels so special. giving a story, and the people you’re watching it with, your full attention for a couple hours has become one of life’s quieter luxuries.
6. collect tiny seasonal traditions
every season deserves a few deserves a few little things that belong only to it. and not the big ones everyone celebrates, just tiny things that make you think, ooh... it's time again. maybe it's strawberry cake every june, gilmore girls the first chilly weekend of autumn, classical music while the house feels cosy in winter, or fish and chips after your new year's day beach walk. they're such little things, but somehow they become part of the way you remember the years.
7. read books that make you forget to be impressive
for a while, i accidentally turned reading into another self-improvement project. somewhere between growing up and becoming an adult, i'd forgotten that books were allowed to be fun. then i picked up a sci-fi novel simply because i wanted to read it, and completely fell back in love with stories again. so read the weird memoir, the ridiculous romance, that historical novel that keeps you up past your bedtime. whatever keeps you sneaking in just one more chapter before bed, that's usually the one.
8. plan tiny adventures
i think we sometimes hear the word "adventure" and immediately picture airports and passports. honestly, sometimes your adventure for the month is finally taking that yoga class you’ve been thinking about, taking yourself to a museum on a rainy afternoon, or wandering around the little town forty minutes away that you've never actually stopped in and buy something from the bakery, get a bit lost, and wander without much of a plan. tiny adventures have a lovely way of breaking up the year, until it starts feeling less like one long blur and more like a collection of stories.
9. choose the story over the shortcut
modern life is remarkably good at removing friction. everything arrives faster, easier and with fewer reasons to leave the house. but convenience sometimes skips the part you end up remembering. think about it, nobody tells the story of clicking buy now. they tell the story of the little second-hand bookshop they stumbled across, getting caught in the rain on the walk home, the conversation with the cashier, or the smell of the bakery before they’d even opened the door. convenience saves time, but every so often, a little inconvenience gives something back instead.
10. give every month something to look forward to
before every month begins, i write a tiny list of things i'm excited for; a new recipe i've been meaning to try, a book i've preordered that i can’t wait to read, a new tv show i'm saving for a rainy evening, a coffee and croissant date with an old friend. nothing grand, just little things that make the month feel like it already has something lovely waiting for me regardless of what life throws my way. it's a tiny ritual, but it's a lovely reminder that ordinary months deserve something to look forward to, too.
the years are going to pass either way. autumn will arrive, next summer will come back around before you know it. and there’ll be another ordinary, slightly chaotic monday, another weekend that goes by too quickly, and another commute home. these are simply a few ways of making sure more of those days become the kind you treasure, rather than the kind that disappear before you even realised they were happening.
p.s. if you had to add one thing thing to this list, what would it be? i already have a notebook waiting
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"if you had to add one thing thing to this list, what would it be?"
Ask friends for album recommendations! See what they like listening to front to back. It's a great way to discover music or listen to things that you might've skipped previously.
I'm keeping this great list close by Hannah, and my add will be to go to the Boston Public Library; I've lived only 7 miles away for the last 23 years and still have not seen it-this article is making me want to change that!