If you are alive, have a smartphone and have one or more Social Media accounts, you have found yourself scrolling down your social media feed checking out what’s new. And when this laborious activity gets boring, you resort to refreshing the feed to catch the latest posts as they are put up. This incessant desire that keeps us glued to timelines and post feeds has been termed the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).
Everyone wants to know what’s hot. No one wants to be the weird co-worker who hasn’t seen the viral video or shared the hottest photo. FOMO compels us to cling to our phones, staring at their little bright screens for dear life. FOMO extends our arms to reach for our phones first thing every morning—even before our Bibles. FOMO makes Instagram the most opened app on our phones. FOMO makes us spend the better part of our waking hours watching other people live their lives, abandoning ours.
What if this new shining FOMO is not the real FOMO? What if we all feared missing out on our purpose and destiny? What if we were more concerned about missing out on what impact we could be making than what new pictures are posted on Instagram? Sometimes I think we care more about everything else but what we should care for. It’s easy to be distracted by the constant stream of information we are bombarded with. But this only called for a heightened sense of focus and determination to be all we can be. Focus and Intentionality are the two words that come to mind. It’s time to stop letting life happen to us and start happening to life!
So drop those tiny little pills…sorry, screens, give those sore thumbs a rest and make something great happen!
PS: Those phones do more than post, tweet, like, comment and share. You could read a book, watch a TED talk or write a blog on one of those. I’m just saying.
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