The Fear of Missing Out
The truth is that we all “miss out” equally. When we really think about it, when we consider the staggering scale and complexity associated with everything that we could ever do in our entire life, we actually accomplish very little in our lives. Irrespective of the degree of ambition or initiative we have to cross off every item on our bucket lists, we nonetheless exhaust an infinitesimally small fraction of this daunting realm of possibility. The fear of missing out makes no real distinction between variety of activity and uniqueness of life experience; it is predicated on a spurious assumption that having more types of activities is inherently good, as it purportedly allows for more variation in our actual unique experience of life itself.
But what if our experience of life is as much about what we don’t experience versus what we do experience? If we begin with the premise that we are primarily defined by our experiences—the interconnected sum of all the moments in our lives, regardless if they were moments of happiness or sadness, of pride or shame, of momentous importance or stark inconsequentiality, of joy or oppression—and then interpose the desire to alter those experiences by way of external influence, we can very easily begin to elicit the inherent flaws ingrained within this short-sighted philosophy of life. The reality is that we are who we are only because of the incredibly specific set of circumstances that belong only to ourselves.
Virtually every individual who did anything remotely important in this world only did what they did because of the very specific way by which they chose to go about their lives. If we truly believe in a “fear of missing out,” all the success stories we learn about are actually failure stories. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be a failure; why didn’t he feel obligated to travel the world, go to more festivities, or get involved in more hobbies, when he instead consigned himself to the strife associated with leading and advocating for the civil rights of his people? Steve Jobs would be a failure; ninety hours of work per week is certainly going to increase his chances of missing out on all the joy and entertainment he could have going out with his friends or family.
It isn’t about a variety of activities. It isn’t about “missing out,” because we all “miss out” on the opportunity to live out someone else’s unique experience of life, however banal or sensational they seem on the surface. It’s about embracing the vastly different walks of life we each possess. It’s about recognizing that while we don’t necessarily have to be proud of everything we experience and don’t experience alike, it will nevertheless ultimately define who we are and what we achieve.
