The ever-unexpected Morgan Library has a new exhibit devoted to lists by famous people: “Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.”

The painter Adolf Konrad made an illustrated list of what to pack.

The architect Eero Saarinen wrote a love list to his future wife.

I have a love/hate relationship with lists. They are always written in a spirit of great optimism, vigor, and foresight. When they are discovered, later, strewn about or forgotten, they typically remind me of my overconfidence, distraction, and failure. When I go to the Morgan this week, I hope to find at least one of those most beautiful of all lists: the list with every item crossed off.