With the rise of social media, we get to see a lot of things our friends are doing or buying or places they’re going to, and this has led to the rise of the phenomenon called FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. It’s a type of envy of other people’s lives and as a type of envy it’s also a form of regret for our own life choices.
FOMO is rightly called a fear, and like all irrational fears, it should be dismissed as soon as one recognizes it. I had the draft of the first part of this post for a while, but after revisiting it, I realized how much it applied to one of my own decisions I’m faced with right now. I’ve already evaluated the decision and have made a rational assessment, but my irrational subconscious is giving me some hesitation. I realize now that the hesitation comes from a place of fear, specifically a fear of missing out on opportunities and experiences by giving up on the other choice.
We can’t live our lives with the fear of regret or missing out, that can only lead us to indecision and paralysis. I try to live without FOMO and one of my own personal life tenets is to “Choose without regret”. As long as I made the best decision I could given the information I had at the time, I will not have any regrets.
(Pretty sure an attitude of FOMO is one of the main reason social media use can lead to depression too!)
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