The art of dealing with FOMO

Orsi Liddiard
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

Are you missing out or are they missing out on you?

Over the years, I’ve experienced many different types of Fear of Missing Out. On a scale, they range between the more minor type of missing out on some sort of event — a party, for example, and the more extreme variation of missing out on life events, on experiences that actually shape people as humans.

During my freshman year of college, the first type was certainly the most prominent. Orientation week specifically — the home of college parties, where you make memories that you promptly forget the next morning. Personally, I attend college in China, where drinks are cheap and 18-year-olds are legal, so the first couple of months can be a blurry haze of madness centred around dingy clubs with pitchers of free, questionably-sourced alcohol on the tables.

I remember being exhausted from the journey over, the orientation events that followed and finally the gruelling cycle that was Elementary I Chinese at 8.15 am, Monday through Thursday. I also remember being terrified that if I missed that exact Friday night, I’d miss out on something big. Maybe I’d make the friends of a lifetime that exact night, while playing a game of Never Have I Ever in a dimly lit sports bar. Maybe I wouldn’t — but there was no way in hell I was staying in. In my 19-year-old mind, if everyone was going out, then so was I.

It’s exactly three years later, and I’m now a senior, just starting my last year of Undergrad. Times, as well as priorities, have changed. Yes, I’ll still go out. No, it won’t be two or three times a week. Why? The best friendships I’ve made have either stemmed from very random meetings (think naked in the gym’s changing room), or have grown into strong friendships over time. At the end of the day, yes, you’ll meet people if you go out — but it really, really doesn’t have to be constantly.

I’ve learned that the person I seemed to be when looking to impress, has not always served me well. Like it or not, people form impressions, and while I’m a firm believer that who you truly are will eventually shine through, it may, and probably will not be straight away.

Although I remember the first semester of my freshman year as one of the loneliest four months of my life, it did in fact teach me things in the long run. It taught me that not everyone is like some people I grew up with, that who you actually are can be good enough to make people like you. It taught me that even if I think I’m invincible, I’m not. And it also taught me that humans can’t run on fast food, gin and exhaustion without failing a class (or two) and gaining about a tenth of their body weight.

Orsi Liddiard

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British-Hungarian hybrid based in Shanghai, currently in Prague.