The Arrival Fallacy: Embracing the 'New Year' Shine (and Finding Glimmers When It Fades)

Happy New Year!  It's the first week of July, the time of year we all collectively level up in academic medicine. Students are now junior doctors, junior doctors become attendings, and we all sigh with relief, thinking, "This is it! The hard part is over, and life is about to get a whole lot better."

And it often does, at least for a while. That paycheck bump and newfound autonomy feel pretty darn good. So, let's bask in this glow, shall we? We've worked hard, maybe even harder than we should have. Let's take a moment to look back and appreciate how far we've come.

But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. The “arrival fallacy" tends to sneak up on us – it’s the idea that reaching a goal guarantees lasting happiness, but then, after some time, that happiness fades. The shine wears off, the emails pile up, and suddenly, those grand rounds don't seem quite as enticing. We were so excited for our “better lives,” but now we’re disappointed that things haven’t actually gotten better.  Maybe we even start beating ourselves up: we must’ve done something wrong if we’ve not found constant (or at least more-often-than-not) happiness. 

This happens to me every year, even though I’m over a decade (gulp!) out of training. I make big promises about reading every journal and attending every conference, but life happens. And that's okay. The trick is not to let those unmet expectations steal the joy from my real progress. Instead, I've learned to focus on finding tiny moments of delight that pop up unexpectedly. For me, this is when my night shift is almost at an end, and I pass a window and see the deepest, most vivid sunrise I’ve seen in months.  When our music therapist’s renditions of “Shake It Off” echo out of a patient’s room and into the nurses’ station right when I get overwhelmed with the number of notes I have to write. 

One of my residents told me she calls these moments “glimmers.”  Her friend group makes it a point to share their glimmers with each other.  They’re practicing vicarious joy, a thrill in seeing others experience joy.  Vicarious joy compounds, magnifying the feeling of delight throughout a group of people.  This can even happen when you’re alone in a crowd; have you ever watched a stranger take a bite of something obviously delicious or two people having an absolute ball with each other while they’re walking somewhere together?  Vicarious joy!  Delight!

So, welcome to this, the first week of the New Year, for us in academic medicine.  I plan to enjoy it for as long as I can.  But when that enjoyment fades, as it always does, I will start looking for moments of delight.  Have you had a moment of delight today?  Lovely friend, may all of the absolute best glimmers come your way 🙂