“I wish I could be there right now,”
“Hmm… it feels like I’ve been replaced overnight,”
“I can’t believe she got married without me,”
How many times have you mumbled these things in your head while scrolling through photos of your friends on vacation, hanging out with new people? All while you were just trying to cook an every day meal and complete your degree?
If you answered honestly, you’ll test positive for FOMO. It’s safe to assume that most of us have it.
FOMO is the fear of missing out. We want to be everywhere and not miss out of fun. Most of us are away from our homes, families and friends. We live in London––one of the busiest cities in the world – with plays, musicals, festivals, exhibitions, rallies, Bollywood nights, yacht parties, and so much more. Not only is it nearly impossible to pick what events to attend, but it is also hard to see your friends having fun without you. That’s where FOMO sets in. Social media has only intensified its effects by making us unintentionally feel helpless, incompetent and lonely.
Now let’s add some fuel to the fire. The questions below will decide your happiness quotient in life:
- Have you taken the much-coveted Euro trip with the most bizarre group of friends?
- Do you have a mushy boyfriend who twins with you in Mickey/Minnie sweatshirts?
- Do you run a start-up?
- And the biggest question of the decade: Have you been to Tomorrowland?
Even if it’s a NO to all the above questions, you still qualify to live a happy life on Earth. Strange, isn’t it?
FOMO isn’t even that important. We have better things in life to worry about, for example: hand washing.
It’s not difficult to get over FOMO, just mute or block the people on social media who have you in an existential crisis. In your newfound free time, start relishing JOMO – the joy of missing out. We are driving ourselves insane behind a world that may or may not be ours, but that we are desperate to be a part of.
I have come to believe that if I don’t have JOMO, then I will be invariably unhappy and probably die of FOMO. We get caught up in the rat race, trying to have a big but superficial group of friends, hanging out in luxurious venues and taking extravagant vacations. But in the midst of it we forget to appreciate ourselves and the people who actually matter to us.
This is hard to digest, but it is not unachievable. We can do things all by ourselves that make us happy, we don’t always need company or validation from society. I don’t want to sound preachy and weird, but catching up on movies alone with a tub of popcorn is a solid use of time. Read a book. Try different recipes, fail and still eat it. You are capable of cherishing your own company. Just try, I promise it helps. And if it doesn’t help, you always have Instagram to go back to.
