- Bryan Bayham, my CLC (Christian Life Community, for those who don't know what it stands for) co-leader and one of my mentors. He first brought it up, saying that I have a load of insights that someone could stumble upon and learn a lot from me. Didn't think about it too much at the moment but I started figuring it's worth the effort.
- Marie Adams, one of my best friends. She's the one who invited me to journal in the first place. I've decided to try it out in blog format. Probably wouldn't have happened until she invited me to journal and put my thoughts down.
- Maira Gutierrez, a really good friend of mine. Her insights in blog-form inspired me to try it for myself. I'd be remiss if I didn't link to her blog because there's some really good stuff there. http://mtgutierrezblog.blogspot.com/ Take a peek before you come back here. You won't regret it.
Anyways on to the actual blog post.
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A little bit of background about me (and the backdrop of this post), I have a huge "fear of missing out" (FOMO) and have had it pretty much all my life. I hate hearing about certain things I missed out on for something else. I start having the "you guys had so much fun without me." thoughts. And hearing about fun things I missed (that I would've wanted to do) only makes matters worse in my head. So much to the point where I need to step out of the conversation, but not before talking obnoxiously loud to block out the conversation at hand as I'm stepping out.
Last Friday, I had a really insightful conversation with someone who's really important to me. I was feeling crappy over something related to FOMO and needed to let out my struggles to this person. What she told me has stuck with me for the past week. She pointed out to me that while I may be "missing out" on things, in reality I'm doing something else that's probably really productive and something to be grateful for. For example, take Pride and Prejudice, the recent school play. The dates worked out really poorly for me and I had to miss it. "Oh my God, it was so good!!" "You need to see it!" were snippets of what I heard from people, only further reinforcing the thought that I was missing out on something really amazing. I don't doubt it was awesome, I mean one of my friends was the stage manager and I knew a few people who were acting. But still, all my emotions wanted to tell people was, "Way to rub it in everyone...thanks for making me feel crappy."
Though within all that negativity, I was overlooking all the life-giving things I had done on most of the nights I could've watched the play. That first weekend, I got to treat my mom to dinner for the first time and have a very enlightening my conversation. I learned some things about my cousins I never knew before and it was quite productive. Wednesday night, I had gone to Hospitality hours with Frances and Chris (Resident Ministers in Sobrato Hall at SCU) and enjoyed yummy desserts and wonderful conversation. Thursday night, I stayed in Campus Ministry until about 11:30 at night prepping for the Search retreat. And of course the closing weekend was Search weekend, the weekend I was pouring out my heart and soul for 8 weeks. The one thing I was so passionate about and couldn't stop talking about. There was so much amazingness that I was a part of and was making me happy; how could I have failed to recognize that amazingness and completely dwell over missing P&P?
It's funny to think about, I bet there are a lot of moments where I let my FOMO get the best of me and I lose sight of all the good that I'm involved in. This person's wise words pose a challenge: looking past the FOMO and being grateful for the things I am a part of. The hidden gems which honestly, shouldn't be hidden at all; they just might not be in plain sight. Being able to take a step back and realizing all the good that I have in my life is one of the first steps I can take for overcoming FOMO. The cool thing is, no matter how easy it is for me to feel like I'm missing out, I have people and things which make me feel included and which I'm a huge part of it. There's recognizing it and then being grateful for it. Hopefully the conversation I had last Friday is step one to overcoming my long-standing FOMO.
