FOMO
For years, I was plagued by FOMO – the “Fear of Missing Out”. Somewhere, someone was having a better time than I was – and I desperately minded! Now I know this is total rubbish. It really doesn’t matter a jot what so-called fun everyone else is having – why on earth did I ever think it did?
I suppose it’s just that I was crass and rather stupid in my youth – and FOMO is a disease that attacks the young. It affects those who are unable to grow older gracefully, creating a layer of anxiety between them and the real world. It’s a mirage of foolish dreams that stops people seeing reality – which is, of course, rather sad. US philosopher David Thoreau had a gloomy fix on this – “All men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
The key to curing FOMO is to understand the difficulties other people are facing. Of course, for young people, particularly males in the first flush of youth, this is easier said than done. Yet, as you squeeze FOMO from your life, you then realise just how much time and energy you’ve wasted on longing to be somewhere else or to be doing something else (or in extreme cases, even wanting to be someone else). It gets better after you’ve stopped caring whether other people like you or not, and it gets even better when you stop being out to impress.
A good thing to do is to cut hurry from your life. Simply slow down and change from “gad about” to “stop and chat”. It’s a much more pleasant way to live. Generally, there’s no reason to rush – and it’s worth appreciating that hardly anything matters very much, and most things don’t matter at all.
And then comes the joy of losing ambition. For most people over the age of, say, 65, your main goals will hopefully have been fulfilled already. These usually revolve around family, children, career and all that – though after 65, who cares anyway? What on earth is the definition of success and who is the judge? Is it all about money, sex and power? How ridiculous is that!
If you google the lives of airbrushed rich and famous celebrities – the sort of people who look as if they fart honey – you will see (and let’s admit it, with quiet satisfaction) that their private lives are often barnacled shipwrecks. Hilaire Belloc famously wrote, “There’s nothing worth the wear of winning but laughter and the love of friends”, and he was onto something. For as FOMO retreated in me, so my own happiness increased – and so did my sensitivity towards others. I understood the importance of friendship, living out kindness above all else, and not doing anything I really don’t want to do.
Ambitious… Me?
In no particular order, here’s a random list of things I’ve never done (and have no ambitions to do anytime soon).
I’ve never…
- Watched Love Island, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here or TV quiz games
- Been to a cricket match, car racing, greyhound racing or a golf tournament (and I never read the sports pages and have no idea what Gary Lineker does)
- Played bingo, visited Crufts or been skydiving
- Attended a fashion show, a rock concert or a séance
- Tried wife “swapping” (Jane will be pleased about that), or taken hard or soft drugs
- Been tattooed or on Twitter
- Worn make-up or moisturiser, or dyed my hair
- Been Morris dancing
- Taken part in wine tasting (and I’ve never been drunk – at least, on purpose, that is!)
Here are a few things I’ve only been to/done once (and I’ve no appetite for an encore):
- New York
- A nightclub (Annabel’s), a “modern” art exhibition and Scottish country dancing
- A bull fight and a football match
- A parachute jump
- The Conservative Party Conference.
All this goes to show how dull and unadventurous I’ve become!
Much Tattoo About Nothing
I can’t stop my instant reactions. When I see someone – and it’s nothing to do with sex – my heart either warms with pleasure or feels an icy chill. Call it chemistry, or whatever you like, but it’s involuntary.
And whenever I see someone smothered in tattoos (and I don’t mean a lone one), I instinctively think “moron”!