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Among all the fears out there, one sticks out as one of the greatest in this generation: the fear of missing out or FOMO. Is it one of yours?
The fear of missing out on people to meet, places to travel to, events to attend, likes to generate.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the FOMO on the simple things. I’ve been thinking about whether this optimistic approach to soaking in the best of what life has to offer is over-complicating what life has to really offer—the bare, unfiltered, uncurated life.
Cooking meals for loved ones. Sitting quietly in the morning under the forming sky and being content with the clouds hovering above. Taking time to do things well, without haste. Doing things not for the sake of it being the most efficient way to do it—doing things that might require a time or distance commitment for things that are worth it.
And where did all of this stem from? I believe we have many voices fighting for our attention, telling us that we ought to, or that we could, or that we should, or that we owe it to him or her or the world to do whatever big and wonderful thing it is. But, who said that wonderful things are only in the big things?
Let’s go back to the very beginning. What is it that we ought to or could or should do? I think we often forget that it means loving God and loving others well. And doesn’t that look like a million different, wonderful ways? It’s a simple call to our lives that get muddled and stretched into something so un-simple. We un-simplify this simple call to our lives because we focus on the details of what it looks like rather than what it loves like.
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