We often experience fear of missing out, or FOMO. In reality, the fact that we are able to experience missing out says a lot about the abundance of possibilities in life, and is not something that should be feared.
Each decision we make in life removes possible futures from our path. These decisions are based on a number of circumstances that lead to us choosing one path over another.
While some of these decisions are commensurate (balanced in value) most decisions are incommensurate (not properly comparable). In other words, the value of most decisions cannot be properly compared against one another. We have truly missed out on something.
However, this missing out does not have to be something that we view as being negative. Instead, the fact that we are able to miss out on different paths in life really indicates that there is so much life to live, we couldn’t possibly live all possibilities.
In many situations, choosing one path over another is not a question of being right or wrong, but rather is one of different paths to be lived. This flexibility in our future is what makes being human so exciting.
Where I see a problem with FOMO is that people (including myself) try to do too many things at once, trying each path our briefly before moving onto the next. This switching of paths without proper exploration leads to having many shallow experiences, instead of fewer deep ones
Humans are not truly capable of cognitive multi tasking. We only focus on one thing at a time, switching that focus between tasks when “multi-tasking”. This switching has a cost, which reduces our ability to focus deeply on the tasks we are trying to accomplish.
Instead of shallowly focusing on many things as a result of FOMO, I try to focus on a few things deeply. This path results in many experiences that are left unlived, but that’s okay.
The deeper experiences that come from accepting it is okay to miss out on things leads to less overthinking, less FOMO, and more quality and depth of life.
The subtext of today’s lesson was “embrace your losses as fair payment for the surplus of being alive”. We are not able to do everything in life, so why try? Instead, focus on that which makes you most satisfied and engaged with life.
Find your flows, and work on improving them every day. 1% better every day for a year is 37 times better than last year. What do you wish you were 37 times better at by this time next year?
If you found this helpful or interesting, I would love to hear your thoughts! The more we learn how this practice helps each of us, the more we can collectively improve. Please feel free to leave questions or comments below.
Continue reading about philosophy for troubled times with: Facing Regret.
Find the full list of mindful thoughts here.
