FOMO, fear of missing out, would not be a trendy phrase if it were not a real thing. Many of us can relate to FOMO as we don’t like to miss out on good things in life.
We should recognize fear is a mindset and often yields negative outcomes. If we’re fearful because of selfish motives, then fear has the opportunity to knock us back in life rather than propel us forward.
So how do people often respond to FOMO? They say yes to everything they possibly can, and typically, become stressed out and run down over time.
What might be a better strategy?
Consider that FOMO should not be the driver, namely, the “fear” part.
We should be driven to carefully consider every decision weighing the opportunity costs as best we can.
I get it, not every relationship or aspect of life can truly have measured opportunity costs because life just doesn’t work like financial investments. Life has many more variables and we will simply never know what opportunities were lost because of that bad relationship we had for too long — or by not quitting that horrible job early enough — or staying close to home instead of moving far away. That’s okay, we all live through situations like this.
But what this should drive you to do is employ a strategy of carefully, thoughtfully, and intentionally saying yes. We only have so much time and no amount of money meaningfully changes that fact — let your yes mean yes.
Let’s be quick to listen and slow to speak. Let’s be quick to say no if our intuition is telling us that. Let’s be careful to say yes and surrender to The Source of Life to guide us through.
We will all have things we miss out on, as that’s just life — we can’t be all places all the time and we can’t be all things to all people. That’s alright. We can, however, be grateful for what we have, use discernment and wisdom when making decisions, and allow ourselves to weigh our opportunity costs for when we say yes, and when we say no.
