FOMO…do you have it?
. . . better read on just in case.
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
It’s been a long week at work and you’re really exhausted. It’s a Friday night around 7pm, you just had dinner and you’re excited to finally relax on your couch and finish up the Netflix series you had been meaning to for a while. But before you do so, you check your phone.
You check Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook only to see your friends out at a bar, party or on vacation. Suddenly you get hit with a burst of anxiety or what they call FOMO (fear of missing out). This burst of FOMO makes you feel like everyone is doing something fun, while you’re just at home. You feel like by not being with your friends you’re actually missing out on life, but if you really think about it, that’s not true at all.
So then why do we think we are missing out?
Well the easiest answer is because we compare ourselves to others. We compare our lows with another individual’s highs. If you think about it, the only time you’re on social media really is when you’re “not having fun”. But something you need to realize is that people only post what they want you to see on social media. FOMO is a form of anxiety and unfortunately social media has given it a bad reputation.
If you’ve read this far, you probably have come to the conclusion that FOMO is bad and that people need to do whatever they can do get rid of it, but what if I told you FOMO could be a good thing? If you look at it form a different perspective, it can definitely play a positive role on our lives.
We are fortunate enough to have freedom which brings us endless choices to do almost whatever we want. But a good majority of people that suffer from FOMO because they strive for so much more. When people don’t choose, everything remains possible, it’s only when you commit to something that all the choices close. This is why the agitation that FOMO brings isn’t necessarily bad, it just means that you have an intuition that there is something more or greater out there.
So what can you do to get rid of FOMO?
1. Start doing things you enjoy yourself, don’t do things you see other people doing. Try to find things you’re passionate about and just go for it because it doesn’t matter what other people are up to. Rather than compare yourself to others, just be grateful about your life.
2. Realize that it is simply impossible to have it all
3. Give yourself some Space
