As you may have (or may have not) known it, I have recently joined an early-stage startup to “follow the trend”: working on blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs. I had a lot of interesting things to do for a while. Continue writing does not mean the interesting things ran out, however.

With the new job, it is natural for me to encounter “fear of missing out” a lot. The phrase then raises a few bits (no pun intended) on my regular actions: I often do not care a lot about what is popular and trending; I prefer “doing my own research”. The act of joining the blockchain trend surely makes me feel like a hypocrite. Writting supposes to improve my mood, I hope.

“Fear of missing out” (or often be abbreviated as “FOMO”) often occurs when you see people do something “exciting” (or “profitable”), and you are afraid that you could not join that “exciting” thing, and you are “losing” if you do not follow that.

We easily get in the state. It is a natural instinct deep within our human brain. I can do nothing but promote a “healthier” alternative: “joy of missing out”. People may have different interpretation of the phrase, but I can coin it to two points:

  1. In most cases, you are not going to die if you miss that
  2. Better things may come at a later time

They are self-explainatory and dumb enough, you think, but we actually need both to make ourselves “less fear of missing out”. You still have regret if you only know (1) or (2). Understanding both makes it easier to let go.