In my first blog post, I talked about my constant battle
with my long-standing FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Taking the advice of one of
my best friends, every time my FOMO would come back, I would try and think back
to what was I doing that was life-giving, helping myself, or something similar.
If I wasn’t doing something and was starting to feel like I was missing out, I
must’ve been doing something to help myself. But what happens when that doesn’t
work? I stared at that situation straight in my face today.
Two months or so ago there was a Senior Night at school. To try
to explain it, our student government puts on a Senior Night for all the
seniors where they can essentially celebrate being seniors. Last quarter it
started at 10 PM or (some similarly super late time like that) on a Tuesday
night. In addition, with some sort of donation, there is a “souvenir” or
something that can only be obtained by going to said Senior Night.
Flash forward to today. I was sitting in Campus Ministry
around noon hanging out and doing the usual. Eventually within a 5-10 minute
period, a whole bunch of seniors, like 8 or so of them, who I’m friends with
were all congregating around the desk. Most of them stated their excitement at
receiving their souvenirs, which are steins marked with our class year on it. Within
all my friends’ excitement about receiving the steins, I stood there feeling awkward
inside and rather uncomfortable. Of course naturally I happened to be the one person within that group of senior
friends that wasn’t getting a stein. I started being consumed by my FOMO again.
I tried to think back, “What was I doing during that Senior Night that was
beneficial to me?” Sleeping? Doing homework? Having a conversation with
someone? I couldn’t remember; I was drawing blanks. I spent the next hour or so
dwelling on how I had missed out on Senior Night and didn’t have that memento
that so many of my friends had and were excited about. My FOMO has always been
a part of me and in this case, it had activated full force. In my head, I had
missed out and I was seeing it in plain sight with all my friends who were
moments away from obtaining these mementos. Despite all my best efforts, I was allowing
my FOMO with Senior Night to make me feel crappy about myself.
Before I move on, I do want to emphasize that none of my
friends could have known they ended up activating my FOMO; they had every
reason to be excited after all. Most times when my FOMO activates, it’s
innocent and unintentional and is no fault of anyone. That is true in this
case.
There were other events through the day that allowed me to
shove my FOMO to the side and not let it affect me. Walking around the Villas
after dinner at Pintrest Palace, I ran into my friend Katherine Burkhuch who
happened to be in Campus Ministry while my FOMO was consuming me (I had started
talking about it to those who were in CM after all my other friends left to
claim their steins). Katherine stopped for a moment and told me that my name
had been included in the list to contact if there were extra steins. I smiled
and told her I really appreciated it and went on my way.
Saying “I really appreciated it” turned out to be a massive
understatement. During the drive home, I kept thinking back to that moment.
Katherine had made her best efforts to alleviate my FOMO. When I couldn’t do it
for myself, she took the time to think of me, consider me, and wanted to make
me feel included. With these thoughts in mind, I started to feel a rush of
emotion. I felt loved and I felt like I mattered enough to someone that they’d
make the time and effort to reach out and include me. It filled me with just
pure happiness. Out of compassion, love, or whatever it may be, Katherine took
the time to reach out her hand to the lonely dark corner I was in and helped
pull me out. For someone who has had many experiences of the proverbial lonely
dark corner in my life, having someone pull me out of that corner means a lot.
A few days ago, I checked in with one of my mentors about
life. One of the things we touched upon was how I shower love on people a lot. She
challenged me to find the balance between showing love to other people and
letting other people show it to me. Taking it in, this is really a moment where
I allowed Katherine’s act of love to surround me. For something I’ve always
struggled with, this act of love came at the right moment. And really, it’s
amazing what a simple act or consideration for someone else can do. I’ve done
my best to do it for other people but when it’s done to you, I feel like it’s
that much more impactful. And my mentor’s advice about letting people show love
to me really came to life.
Whether I ultimately receive the stein or not doesn’t
matter. I may even feel I wouldn’t deserve it because I wasn’t at Senior Night.
The stein would be cool, but it’s not really the point of why I’m writing this.
Sometimes when all else fails, letting someone do an act of compassion for me
is the best way of doing things. My negative feelings because of my FOMO got
replaced with an act of love shown by someone else to me. Was it a simple act
of love? Yeah it was. But it was powerful. All it took was a simple act of compassion to assist me in batting my FOMO. It really is amazing.
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