Dealing with FOMO?

This post was triggered by a friend’s tweet, which read – This is how I enjoy life all the time. Starts with No Expectations. The image read – Learn to be ok with not being invited, included, or considered.

Ah! Have you felt it? Have you felt left out or worried that someone did not invite you or did not rope you in for something? Have you had this feeling of being miffed or upset that you were not part of the program?

We have just spent six months and now more grappling with everything the pandemic has thrown at us and now more than ever, we seem to have gotten a lot more fragile.

Such fragile emotions and egos at play suddenly. I have seen many instances of this both in my personal relationships and professional ones.

The personal ones will still sort themselves out somehow, but if this is at play at work and in a professional environment, it can be detrimental to both the organisation and to the career or the person and their relationships.

Why do we feel this? Why do we feel left out or experience fear of missing out? Why do we derive joy from expectations we have form others or set ourselves up for disappointment in context of what others need to do for us?

What is this disappointment with feeling left out? There maybe a million reasons for someone to have not considered or overlooked and its normal and happens.

Here I will quote Sylvia Plath, one of my favorite poets,

If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.

How do you offset this? How do you work on not setting expectations?

1. Your worth and value are not quantifiable by only where you are seen, appear or are heard
2. The only person you can have expectations from is yourself
3. Identify what these expectations are and focus on directing them inwards
4. Life has a way of teaching you that you cannot always have control and that failure is bound to happen and people will let you down if there is onus on them to deliver
5. Competition and comparison are the worst kind of derailers when it comes to feeling left out or let down
6. Focus on the journey and not the destination and this will make driving outcomes easier
7. Manage expectations in such a way that the stress on both you and others around you is minimum
8. Remove external influences and stressors from your life that do not add value

Now, let us think of what makes us disappointed? Why does not being called to be seen or featured somewhere hurt so much?

Have we set ourselves to standards defined by the external world or are we who we are despite all the noise around us?

When you are a complete person within yourself and are secure and know that your footprint is unique and you bring value to the table that no one else can and you do this with humility, fame and recognition and all that will come to you of its own accord.

If there is no humility and there is desire to be slotted into spaces that should give you or owe you something that is up for grabs, it becomes a chase and a chase is never a good thing when you want to run long haul…

It is hard to get to a level where all of this does not matter, but that is when you will operate at your very best.

A lot of what I have shared today also aligns with Buddhism and its base principles too. So here’s to a life that is full of secure, happy thoughts with no expectations!

The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.

Shreya Krishnan

Vice President - Marketing and Communications at Aon India Insurance Brokers

Shreya is a CSR Specialist and Corporate Grooming Consultant. Her interests lie in Activism, Dance, Theatre, Poetry, Blogging, Modelling, Acting. She considers herself an Earth Warrior and is an Event Anchor and Trainer. She is a Pageant Winner and public speaker.