FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

College is supposed to be the best time of your life, right? The time when you learn who you really are, you meet your lifelong best friends, you explore the meaning of life, you find your calling, you meet your future spouse, you stay up all night and party all weekend, you travel, you gain freedom from your family and your hometown, you stretch your limits and get to be you. Sleep can wait – right now, you are busy living life to the fullest every second!

Pressure

Those are some really high expectations for just four years. Yes, college is amazing and transformative. You will come out of this experience a different person than you went in. Hopefully you will be a wiser, more mature, more well-adjusted, more confident person. Packing all of that into just a few years though creates a lot of pressure to do it all and see it all and experience it all while you have the chance.

This frenzied attempt to live your best life can create stress and anxiety which actually prevent you from living that best life. With so many options for entertainment, living spaces, classes and majors, organizations, clubs, sports teams, volunteer opportunities, and career building prospects, it’s impossible to do it all. Making choices and prioritizing necessarily involves eliminating some of those options. That elimination process can make us feel like we are cutting ourselves off from a whole set of interesting options as Robert Frost did in The Road Not Taken.

FOMO - Fear of Missing out

Do you feel like you are always missing out on something? Does it bother you that things are happening and you are not a part of them? Even if what you are already doing is pretty great, do you wonder if there is something better out there? Do you find yourself texting and watching your social media feeds to see what everyone else is doing instead of enjoying where you are? Do you have trouble committing to plans because you are afraid something better will come up and you will miss it? Do you feel like you are always a step behind or missing something important?

The term FOMO (fear of missing out) was coined back in the early 2000s when people were becoming more connected by technology and, as a result, less connected personally. Curating an amazing online presence gained importance while depth of experience fell by the wayside. Keeping tabs on what everyone else was doing and comparing it to what we were doing (or not doing) became not only possible, but downright easy. FOMO leads us to give up quality of experience in favor of quantity of photo ops. By trying to make sure we aren’t missing anything, we are not truly experiencing anything.

FOMO is a part of our culture which is unlikely to go away any time soon. Social media is here to stay and with it comes the ability and temptation to compare ourselves to others on a second-by-second basis. There are a few steps you can take to limit the impact of FOMO on your happiness.

Step 1 – What’s on your bucket list?

Think about the experiences which your college career will not be complete without. Write them down on a college bucket list.

Do you need to study abroad? Do you need to work in a lab with a research team? Do you need to play a varsity sport? Do you need to join a fraternity or sorority? Do you need to host your own radio show?

When you look back on your college experience, what will you regret not doing? Prioritize these experiences. Make them happen! These are the things you will remember missing out on long after you have forgotten that night of bar hopping.

Step 2 – What have you done?

I bet you have had a ton of fun at college already! What have you done? Keep a list of all of the amazing experiences you have and all of the fun things you do – even the mundane every day ones. Did you and your roommate stay up all night talking and laughing? Did you go to a party and meet an interesting person? Did you try a new dish at a restaurant? Did you see an amazing exhibit in a museum? Did you listen to an inspiring speaker on campus?

None of these experiences by themselves are earth shattering or life changing, but these everyday joys add up to something pretty transformative. Reflect back on your list when you are feeling the fear of missing out and remember that you are doing a lot (even if you aren’t doing it all).

Step 3 – Stop comparing your cutting room floor with everyone else’s highlights reel

Social media can make everyone else’s life look amazing! Curating an online presence has become an art and an obsession. Remember that everyone else is suffering from FOMO too. Their social media feed is an attempt to show you that they aren’t missing out on anything, not a reflection of their reality. They aren’t really doing more than you are, they are just recording it well. They aren’t sharing the hours they spend studying or the day they slept through their alarm or the meal they had in the dining hall or the bad date they went on or any of the other boring minutiae that make up life. They are showing you their highlights reel. Expecting you real life to compare with their fully edited fairy tale story just isn’t reasonable.

Step 4 – Wherever you go, there you are

When you find yourself itching to be somewhere else, somewhere better, somewhere more exciting, try instead to be fully present in the moment where you already are. Rather than living in the future or in the past or on the other paths you could have taken or on the next path you will take and worrying about what you might be missing, focus on the experience you are actually having and connect with the people you are with. Instead of texting and following those you aren’t with on social media looking for something better, appreciate what you have without judging it as good or bad, as more or less exciting or interesting than the other options. Life is merely a series of moments. The moment you are living right now is the only one you can live right now, so pay attention and live it - purposefully, fully and mindfully.