The fear of missing out is real, my friend… and I am afraid to tell you this because it may ruin your day — although not knowing it will likely ruin your life.

OR at least lead you down a path of apathy and inadequacy.

So here’s the harsh truth (apologies in advance) …

IT’S DESIGNED THAT WAY.

And when I say “IT”, I mean much of modern-day living.

• Social media
• Traditional Media
• The myth that is Work/Life Balance
• The online world in general…

Much of it (basically, all of it) is designed around the fear of missing out; ensuring you feel like you are missing out.

Out on what, well… that doesn’t really matter.

And that is why THIS does matter. Because unless you become conscious and aware of THIS, you will lose yourself in hustle culture and you will fall victim to the bombardment of hustle porn thrust upon you each day.

AND you will compare YOU to THEM countless times every single day, fueling the cycle even more as the fear of missing out intensifies.

But there is hope.

Not hope in the sense you can change the world or fix the system, but rather hope in the form you can regain (some) control of your uncontrollable life.

You are set to fail and some days you will — you are human, after all.

Yet a few simple tweaks can make a world of difference, and it all begins by flipping the fear of missing out upside down and inside out.

the fear of missing out: what is it?

So… what is the fear of missing out?

The fear of missing out (also known as … FOMO) is the emotional response to your belief other people are living more satisfying lives compared to you.

This isn’t rooted in logic. It’s pure speculation, subjection, and instant reaction.

You see someone, whether you know them or not, and make instantaneous perceptions based on what you see, hear, smell, or simply “have a feeling of”.

As humans, we do this countless times each day. We are pattern-making machines, which makes sense when you think about how much there is for us to process.

All the sights. all the sounds. all the people. all the stimulation.

We cannot properly process everything, and so we rely on patterns and beliefs we’ve built over time to guide us toward safety.

It’s efficient and we simply couldn’t live any other way.

BUT … boy does it get us into trouble.

We form prejudices due to this, which can quickly transform into discrimination. We rely on these “beliefs” to fuel our habits and routines, which can take us down dangerous paths of addiction, sabotage, and mental anguish.

It’s been this way, always… and so, the fear of missing out (FOMO) is not new. You’ve heard of sayings like, “Keeping Up with The Jones”, I am sure.

Same thing. It’s just the fear of missing out in cliche form.

It centers around us seeing other people and making instant, often wrong assumptions about their happiness, success, and meaning.

Nice clothes = successful person because that’s the story we’ve built.

Expensive car = they must be happy because cars make people happy.

Big wide smile = wow, they must have life figured out.

Deep down, we know all this is DUMB. But we are human; we are dumb. Sure, we have the ability to question our existence, but so far we haven’t come close to giving said existence any real meaning. 

We search for it, forever and always; hoping one day we feel adequate… enough… worthy of love, from others and ourselves… we just want to be happy!

But do we understand what happiness is? Not really. We just create these vague notions of it, along with “success” and “power” and “healthy”.

And because the only person we ever get to truly know is ourselves, and because we are aware of all our imperfections and fears, and because we see others who are seemingly more “together” than we are… well, we assume they are better.

That right there is the fear of missing out.

It is a fear that unless we do what they do—and unless we have what they have—they will remain better than we are, and, as such, we’ll remain feeling like we do right now — which most of the time is a state of fragility.

Which is both natural and okay, by the way… because we are fragile.

To be human is to be fragile.

today = FOMO on steroids!

Having to navigate the fear of missing out is nothing new. I imagine early man still peeked over to their neighbor and looked longingly at their cave.

But the fear of missing out has taken on new levels of late.

Go back just a few decades and you didn’t come across many people on any given day. Your colleagues. Your neighbors. Even celebrities on TV and in magazines… the access you had to “other people” was limited.

Today, that’s no longer the case.

Because today, you can sneak fleeting peeks into the lives of hundreds. 

All in a matter of seconds. 

In fact, I dare say you come across more people in one day than those who were alive one hundred years ago did in a decade (maybe even a lifetime).

Now that, my friend, is overwhelming ?

And what do we do when we get overwhelmed?

We search for patterns. We form prejudices. We then create beliefs out of these.

Beliefs that hopefully help us better navigate this crazy world.

And after years of subconsciously submitting yourself to this, watching TV and scrolling through social media… you too, my friend, have formed BELIEFS.

Subconscious ones not rooted in logic.

So-called truths that are not true, but direct and dictate you nevertheless.

It all fuels your FOMO; an exhausting, relentless process with no end in sight.

OR does it?

introducing the joy of missing out

A term you may be less familiar with is JOMO: the joy of missing out.

If you’re like me, when you first read this you may say, “Is there joy in that?”

Well, that’s the point. We’re programmed to assume we need more. That if we miss out on something, we miss out. Yet that isn’t always the case, and both this quote and the article that accompanies it (from Ryan Holiday) demonstrate why…

Everything You Say Yes To Is Saying No To Something Else.

While writing Beyond The Pale, I interviewed my friend, Jules Shroeder about the art of saying NO and how often we say yes to what at best is a maybe.

It’s the fear of missing out that fuels this.

By succumbing to this fear, we steal the joy of saying yes to one of those 100% Hell Yeah moments because we’re too busy and preoccupied.

You cannot go a mile deep or have a meaningful impact if you try to be everything to everyone. You need to say no. You need to let go. You need to miss out and not compare yourself to this person and that. You need to embrace yourself and your situation and what a HELL YES looks like to you.

That’s where the joy of missing out comes in.

You’re not missing out at all. At least, you likely aren’t missing out on anything important. All you’re doing is freeing your life up for the moments that matter.

Yet you’ll never achieve this by endlessly scrolling through social, wishing you were like all the beautiful and happy people you come across.

comparison culture and you ?

It may be frustrating to hear this, but you are set up to fail when it comes to FOMO.

Much of modern-day living centers around this idea of Comparison Culture.

The brands want you to buy their things.

The platforms want your attention.

The media need your eyes, ears, and more.

And so, each day you’re fed an endless stream of temptation, all in a bid to fuel your FOMO. There’s not a great deal you can do to stop it. If you’re like most, you need to be part of this online world and fast-paced society.

It holds many opportunities for you, after all.

But what you can do is be conscious of this reality; to try and spot spiral and catch yourself comparing YOU to THEM. When you do—and you WILL—question it.

Are you missing out? Do they really offer what you desire? Is that happiness?

or by missing out, are you able to focus on the HELL YESES in your life?

That where is FOMO becomes JOMO, and it’s when the fear of missing out no longer controls you. In time, you may find yourself controlling it, using the fear as proactive inspiration instead of idle procrastination and spiraling inadequacy.

hi, i’m turndog and I wrote this article … i am a writer, ghostwriter, anti-hustler & a guy on a mission to ensure you too escape the hustle — come be part of the [no hustle] movement

hi, i’m turndog and I wrote this article … i am a writer, ghostwriter, anti-hustler & a guy on a mission to ensure you too escape the hustle — come be part of the [no hustle] movement