The small joy that changed everything

In my journal years ago, I scribbled these words:
“The greatest pinnacle of spiritual health is enjoyment.”

You’ve probably never heard a sermon or talk on the spiritual value of enjoying life. I hadn’t either. In fact, if you’re anything like me, you may have grown up absorbing a very different message: indulging in things you enjoy is shameful. That fun and spirituality can’t exist in the same room.

It’s a message many of us have internalized without realizing it.
Spiritual ≠ Fun.

When you picture someone who is deeply spiritual, what comes to mind?

Maybe an aloof guru sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop. Or a robed leader using words like benediction or sanctification. We don’t often picture someone laughing at a joke, savoring a meal, or dancing barefoot in the kitchen. But maybe we should.

Because the absence of joy can quietly crush the soul.

I know this from experience.

During the height of the pandemic, I was a healthcare leader carrying some weighty responsibilities. I led the team that responded to every patient death. In 2 ½ years, we handled 5,563 deaths. Each one a person. A story. A life.

At the same time, I helped direct the ethical response of our health system by crafting policy around CPR for COVID patients, managing visitor restrictions, and responding to constant questions from frontline staff unsure how to proceed with very sick patients.

It was a lot to carry. And then came the personal losses. Two people I loved died within a short span.

By late 2022, I was unraveling.

On my birthday, my body finally sent the signal. My smartwatch alerted me to a dangerously irregular heart rhythm—atrial fibrillation. Not long after, I was on a gurney in my own hospital, fully awake, while the crash cart charged 255 joules.

The shock bounced me off the bed like a rag doll. Weeks later, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I was burned out. Badly.

Burnout strips you of joy. You feel like a robot, insignificant and mechanical. You wake up tired, numb, and bitter. You wonder if you’ll ever enjoy anything again.

Spiritually, I was hollow. I had lost my purpose. Anger was my baseline.
Spoiler alert: recovery takes years, not weeks.
But mine started a few weeks after the crash cart.

My wife and I rented an Airbnb in Sawyer, Michigan. I knew that if I wanted to reclaim my life, I had to reconnect with the part of me that could still feel desire, delight, and wonder.

So, I made a bucket list. Not a “before I die” kind of list—but a “while I’m still alive” list.

Simple things. Small pleasures. Activities I could do just because I wanted to.
Item #57: Boil a teapot until it whistles.

I had never done it. I’m a coffee drinker. We didn’t own a kettle.
I’d seen it on TV a hundred times but never heard the whistle for myself.

The Airbnb had a kettle.

I filled it with water and set it on the stove. I stood nearby as it began to rumble. Then a low hiss. Then a stuttering wheeze. And finally…
a clear, rising whistle.

That sound cracked something open in me.

If I could still enjoy something so small, maybe I wasn’t lost after all.
Maybe I could find my way back to myself. To spiritual health. To joy.

Since then, I’ve been crossing things off my bucket list—forty-four items and counting.
Some monumental: quitting the job that broke me in 2023.
Some tender: teaching my daughter to drive.
Some nostalgic: visiting my old Boy Scout camp.
Some adventurous: standing on the shores of Laguna Beach.

And with each one, I’ve felt a flicker of joy return.
A sense of gratitude.
A renewed soul.

Now I speak and write about burnout full-time. I meet people across the country—nurses, social workers, executives—good people doing hard work, many of them carrying the same invisible weight I once carried.

They’ve lost themselves in service to others.
While noble, it’s not spiritually sustainable.

When we no longer enjoy a good meal, a moment of affection, a personal win. When we forget how to laugh or pause or take in beauty. That’s a sign.
Not just of burnout.
But of spiritual emptiness.

Enjoyment isn’t fluff. It’s fuel.

The capacity to enjoy even small things is essential to wellbeing.
Not just for your body or your mind, but for your soul.

So, here’s the question I’m asking myself today:
What’s something small I could enjoy, just because I’m alive to do it?

What about you?