Back in 2023, after years of oncology practice, I began to experience my first real symptoms of burnout. The everyday stress of a busy clinic was amplified by increased administrative demands and the growing weight of cumulative loss. I felt as though there was a hole in my personal gas tank. I tried to refill it with all the usual self-care strategies—exercise, meditation, and vacation time yet I still felt as though I was running on empty.
I had an intuitive sense that joy might be an antidote to the heaviness of burnout, but fun and levity are not things that come naturally to me. Even the task to “go out and have fun” felt overwhelming. I decided to lean into what comes naturally to me: structure and planning. I started by brainstorming a “fun” menu—a list of leisure activities that reliably boost my mood. By giving fun a framework, I hoped to have less decision fatigue and a higher likelihood of engaging in these positive experiences. I decided that the upcoming year, 2024, would be the “Year of Music” and I planned my next months to maximize my exposure to music in every way possible.
I bought tickets to see my favorite artists, attended my first 3-day music festival, and said “yes” whenever I had the opportunity to see live music of any kind. I traveled across states and oceans to share concerts with my family and friends. At the end of the year, I wasn’t surprised by how much I enjoyed the music itself, but I was taken aback by how much I loved being a part of a shared experience. Whether it was thousands of Swifties singing the same lyrics or an arena of strangers bopping to the same beat it was a feeling of collective joy. Although listening to music alone in my kitchen has always made me happy, I found that sharing the experience with other concertgoers had an amplified effect. Neuroscience helps explain what I was feeling: Music activates the brain’s reward pathways, particularly dopaminergic circuits associated with pleasure.1 And when experienced in groups, music has been shown to increase social cohesion and connectedness.2
The next year, 2025, became my “Year of the Sunset”. On January 1, I resolved to see as many sunsets as possible in the new year. When my loved ones learned of my plan, they began texting me sunset photos that they captured on their own phones. From mountaintops and parking garages to airplanes and front yards, we turned a simple daily sight into a shared ritual. What began as a solitary mindfulness practice became communal. Looking back at those texts now, my heart feels full in a way that is hard to describe. Research supports what I was experiencing. Awe—particularly when experienced collectively—has been shown to increase feelings of connectedness.3 Shared positive experiences strengthen social bonds and intensify emotional benefits beyond those experienced alone.4 This was especially apparent as I sat on the beach to watch the last sunset of the year. The entire shoreline erupted into cheers and applause when the sun dipped below the horizon and I felt the familiar lift of collective joy. Like concertgoers cheering for an encore, strangers stood together in appreciation of something fleeting and beautiful.
I was having so much fun with my themed years, how could I not continue? I have declared 2026 the “Year of Sports”. I discovered the joy of sports a little later in life, but it did not take long for me to recognize the powerful experience of being a fan. Whether rooting for a professional team in a crowded stadium or jumping up and down in a high school gym, there is something cathartic, inspiring, and deeply communal about the experience. Some of my happiest moments have been spent cheering on my kids and their teammates especially those improbable, come-from-behind wins. Professional athletes, Olympians, and Little League players all evoke the same surge of hope. Sports give us permission to feel deeply, loudly, and publicly. Research on sports spectatorship suggests that identifying with a team fosters social identity, belonging, and psychosocial well-being.5 These shared positive emotional experiences have been linked to increased resilience and life satisfaction.6
Looking back on my quest for fun, I realize now that the structure was helpful and the activities were enjoyable, but the real intervention was collective joy. Shared positive emotional experiences strengthen social bonds, enhance resilience, reduce stress, and counteract emotional exhaustion.7 In oncology, we have gotten better about coming together to process loss. We debrief after difficult cases. We mourn patients who have touched our hearts. But we rarely come together to celebrate. We chart pain, but not joy. We acknowledge suffering, but not beauty. What would it look like if we did? What if we shared the moments of awe—the small victories, the gratitude, the beauty we witness daily in our patients, our colleagues, and our lives outside the clinic? Shared positive moments may be a powerful buffer against burnout and moral distress—not because they erase the hard parts of our work, but because they remind us why we are still here doing it. My experiment began as a personal attempt to battle burnout. It has become a quiet reminder that joy, like any effective treatment, is most powerful when taken regularly and even more influential when shared.
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