I used to get really bad type A fomo over the notion that all my friends were having a great time together without me. This could spiral into rejection, over thinking that they might have purposefully left me out and overall don’t want me. It also made me feel like I was failing at friendship. Like I wasn’t putting myself out there enough or that I was doing something to lead people to believe that I didn’t want to party.
Nowadays, fomo tends to manifest itself in different ways. Sometimes it visits me as Big Life Fomo. I fear missing out on having a child and starting a family of my own, and that I’ll have no choice but to live out a life I never planned for. I fear missing out on having a home to call my own and do all the things you would in such a dwelling. I fear missing out on doing anything that might bring me pleasure as I more often contemplate how many years I have left to do all the fun things I want to do (it’s still a lot, but life is short so they say). Today I heard a passerby on my park stroll say to their companion “we’ll make it up to uncle Tony’s next weekend,” and I spiraled into fomo. Where are all my uncles with country cottage homes who invite me up for the weekend? When will I get to laugh with familiars at dinner parties like all good adults should?
I get Art Fomo, usually triggered by IG scrolling. Some kind of post will leave me afraid that I’m not working hard enough, not making enough money, not enjoying making art enough, not trying enough new things in my practice, or not playing the art world game with as much savvy as some. Maybe this is why I’ve come to follow and love more and more scrappy DIY artists that operate outside of gallery systems. It feels familiar to me, and I feel like I can commiserate with the potential struggle behind the shimmering photo as I scroll by.
But my most everyday experience of fomo is very simple: I have a persistent fear that I’m missing out on the beauty of the world. Do you ever get the feeling when you stare at a beautiful sky, or smell sweet blossoms, or catch a warm breeze, that your mere senses aren’t enough? That you can’t look at a glowing sunset hard enough? There must be something better than vision. Maybe it can be devoured or captured. Maybe if we post it on instagram it will be more and better and last forever. Do you ever keep walking through a beautiful day even though you’re long past tired and you have an overflowing life waiting for you at home?
It’s because of this World Beauty Fomo that I go on epic, and sometimes punishing walks. If I have an errand or appointment to go to I’ll choose walking over transit, even if it’s too hot or raining or I’m already tired or grouchy. Sometimes it pays off in a big way, but sometimes it’s painful and exhausting and frankly; a little bit dumb. I often choose to walk to and from my fertility clinic for appointments even though it’s over an hour away. It soothes me before I head into a complicated place. But other times it drains my energy and leaves me completely depleted for the day ahead.
I had one of these epic clinic appointment treks recently. It was hot and sunny, I’d walked for hours and I was really wiped when I got home. I pretty much had no choice but to stay inside and be still on the couch. Gabe and I ordered pizza, and watched the mountainous Wyoming technicolor epic Shane. But I could hear out the window the sounds of evening song birds and happy voices in yards accentuated by the aromatics of charcoal barbecue smoke. That is the definition of my life’s greatest fomo: being in an inside room while the world works its magic without me. Sure, I saw Shane but what if I could have seen some nice street lamp light bouncing off of some leaves, or a twinkling star or two? What if I could have felt the cool evening air against my skin? How many more beautiful nights will pass me by before my time is up?
I’ve been aspiring to work through fomo with grace. To meet that fear with compassion and curiosity. To ask the questions: what do I yearn to feel through these imagined missed experiences? And is it possible that that feeling I long for already exists within my being? Can I find a sense of belonging, acceptance, worthiness, and beauty by turning inward and deepening my awareness? That’s where this Tara Brach talk on transforming fomo enters (although I’m not sure if she ever got FOF -fear of failure - trending):
It’s a practice, and this sense of presence doesn’t always come with ease. But when it does; I know I am not missing out on the world as it’s working it’s magic. The world is here in my living room, and the magic is me watching Shane and eating a pizza pie on a late summer’s eve with my sweetie.
This is beautiful. I used to have a phrase for the inverse of world beauty fomo. It was "being in love with the world" and it ceased to happen for such a long time that I forgot. But when I was connecting my life and perspective to what's lovable about the world, that phrase was a structure I could compare degrees of my enthusiasm to. But now I'm ok and enjoying the things I collected during my dulled years, with sadness and appreciation. I'm glad I collected what I could!
Oh yes, the thing I wanted to mention. I also love a smell, honeysuckle and peony are ones I rely on to boost my steps between the next whiff of neighboring bush. Boy. Love a smell. These two get stuck in my nose just right. Their seasons are easy to mark a year by, set my nostalgia clock to. I put a spell into my friends then-new romance during peony season once, suggesting she relish the wafts while in her phase of considering this deeply capable poetry man she had found. I wasn't a witch back then, but maybe I was?