Fear of missing out: this is something that many, if not all, of us have, to some degree.
We feel like somehow the life we’re living is missing something, and that there’s so much going on out there that we want to be part of.
But I would look at this in two ways.
In one sense, this “FOMO” can never be satisfied.
So much so that there’s no point in actually being afraid of it.
Because if you look at the size of the universe, not just in like the size of empty space or what’s out there, but simply the size of the human world, all the people in the world, all the places in the world, all the things that are going on.
Even if we were to be these super globe-trotters that could visit every corner of the earth and meet tens of thousands of people, even millions, within the time of our lives, if we spent every moment in maximal exploration of the world: at the end of living to 120 years of maximal exploration, we would still get only a very tiny slice of what’s out there.
Somebody living this super globe-trotting, exploring life, open to all things, the extreme of what you could imagine of this kind of embracing life mentality, the YOLO, extreme YOLO, FOMO-conquering YOLO life: at the end of- somehow this person manages to live to the age of 120, and even at the end of that time, that person would only have witnessed and been part of and experienced a very small slice of what’s out there.
You could meet thousands of people; there’s millions and millions more.
You could visit thousands of places; there’s thousands of places more.
And even if you could somehow meet everyone in the world and visit every place, you’re still only living in one tiny slice of history.
So no matter what, we are always going to be “MO”.
We’re always going to be missing out.
So to that side of things, there’s really no reason to be afraid of it, because we can simply assume that, no matter what, we will miss out.
There are so many things going on that are beyond our scale.
We simply cannot be doing everything.
Every day, there is some exciting new thing happening somewhere.
Every minute, somebody has a cool new thing.
We simply cannot keep up with it all.
So, forget about that FOMO.
It seems to be unnecessary.
It seems to be maybe not something to think of as a fear of missing out, but simply of a hunger for life, a thirst for life, a thirst to experience what we can.
But we still have to accept that, no matter how full our lives are, we’re still only going to get the tiniest slice of the universe.
But where I could see it being a useful feeling, something to pay attention to this FOMO feeling, is maybe it’s not like we’re living that perfect adventure, exploring-the-world life, where we have the maximal possible experience with our time.
Maybe we are living in a very small space, even smaller than the slice that we could live in.
And maybe that feeling is telling us something real, that it’s not about “Oh, there’s so many things going on.
I have to be part of all of them.
I can’t miss out anything.” But a feeling that maybe I’m missing out something that my life could be.
Something that my life really could be.
Not just because it’s happening somewhere in the universe, but something in my life, that my life could be something better.
I could be living a bigger, more open, and more full life, and I’m missing out on this opportunity in my own life, because of living within very narrow guidelines.
So if it’s to this level, then I think FOMO, that feeling, can be a guide, perhaps, that we need to make something more of our lives.
We need to let more new things, new adventure, new possibilities into our lives.
So, we can never get it all.
We’re always going to be missing out on almost everything that’s going on anywhere in the universe.
But within this little slice of the universe that we have, we do have the ability to make it more than what we have now.