Fomo, Yes It Does Exist

By Juhi Gautam

Have you ever come across a feeling that your life is extremely dull when compared to the happening lives of your acquaintances? Have you ever felt the persistent need to check your phone just because you don’t want to miss out on something?

Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a constant feeling of dissatisfaction with your own life and a desire to live others’ lives just because you think that your life is not as interesting as theirs. Fear of missing out can impart a blot on a person’s self confidence and can drive a person into extreme anxiety and a condition called ‘Inferiority complex’ can engulf the person. But why would a person feel dissatisfied with one’s own life?

The advent of social media has arisen a lot of debates over its costs and benefits but evidently, the cost people have to pay as a result of using social media platforms outnumber the benefits that come with it. People tend to portray their ‘Perfect’ lives on social media filtering any kind of realness that might adhere to it. This in turn serves for the motive, to make others envy their lives and feel that their life is not as lively or dynamic as the ‘heavily filtered’ pictures of the lives of other people delineate. This insecurity, as a consequence of envy which is caused by social media leads to a fear of missing out, here, missing out on the pleasures that life has to offer.

There might have been instances when you did not attend the party you were invited to because of some work at office or perhaps some homework. But when you see those incandescent pictures posted on Instagram or Facebook, you are submerged in

extreme regret because you feel that you have missed out on a lot of things. At that very moment, the party you missed out on feels more important than the homework or office work that you would have missed out on otherwise. This clearly states how the fear of missing out can play with human capability and potentiality.

What if I am dealing with FOMO? How do I overcome it? Should I feel afraid to own up that I might be suffering from FOMO?

You are certainly not alone. People belonging to any gender or any age group can suffer from the fear of missing out and moreover, in this socially active world, it’s not a rare phenomenon.

What is needed is for you to seek pleasure in the small moments that your life brings to you. It is very important for you to focus on what all you have rather that eyeing things that you don’t have or are difficult to attain. Life satisfaction is the key here, you need to learn to make peace with how your life is going and realising that there are a lot of people out there who are barred from having even the basic necessities of survival and are still striving to make their lives better each day.

Rather than looking for friends in those broadly smiling faces in Instagram pictures, be a reason to make someone else smile. A good human being feels contented on imparting happiness to others. This will vaporize all your feelings of envy and will help you focus on your own life and goodwill bringing positivity and success at your doorstep.

Even when someone is showcasing their moments of happiness with you, rather that feeling jealous, appreciate them or compliment them. This will help you acknowledge others’ happiness without making you compare your life with others’.

Focus on real connections and when you are with your friend, PUT THAT PHONE ASIDE. Make the most out of the time that you get to spend with your friends. That online friend you only know because of the number of followers he has will only keep making you feel bad about your own follower count.

Your phone will keep reminding you of emails that you are yet to read, tweets that you are yet to re-tweet or snaps that you are yet to open.

Don’t get lost in this web of being ‘socially aware’ about current events and being ‘socially updated’ about the spiced-up incidents in your school or your neighbourhood that don’t even make any sense. Focus on YOURSELF more than anything else and you will find a path out of this labyrinth of FOMO.

If humans make mistakes, they even rectify them for their own good. Don’t surrender yourself to this fast-growing world of social media and peoples’ expectations from you. You are perfect the way you are and believe me, that party you didn’t attend was not worth it because nothing on this planet has the right to play with your brain and tamper with your self-esteem.

By Juhi Gautam