At the end of last year, I learned two new words: FOMO and JOMO.
Let's start with FOMO, which is an abbreviation for Fear of Missing Out, which refers to the anxiety of always worrying about losing or missing something, or at worst, "fear of missing out".
The term first became popular in financial circles.
There is no shortage of legends about the stock gods, sometimes buying the right stocks, funds, can make people rich overnight, but it is also accompanied by huge risks, and if you are not careful, you may lose all your money.
Many people don't want to miss the opportunity to make huge profits, but they are afraid of taking risks, so they will suffer from gains and losses, anxiety, and fear that if they miss an important piece of information, they will miss 100 million.
Later, everyone pondered that there is more to the world than stock speculation, and FOMO emotions can appear in all aspects of life.
I often want to open Weibo, Moments or WeChat groups, and I can't wait to live in the hot search list, as long as I can't eat fresh "big melons" for the first time, I will FOMO;
On the weekend, when I looked through the circle of friends and found that others were traveling, but I was staying at home, FOMO emotions arose;
Parenting is the "hardest hit area" of FOMO.
Open the circle of friends, a small book, you can find new FOMO anytime and anywhere, per capita Xueba Xueshen, a lot of awards, some Olympiad competitions have won awards, some have passed the English test KET, PET, and some have participated in sports competitions to get rankings...... When I turned my head and looked at my child again, there was nothing.
Frequent parties during the Chinese New Year are also, and the topics of conversation are nothing more than work and children, whose baby is the first in the grade again, whose baby has studied abroad, and whose baby's specialty has become a special recruitment condition......
The originally down-to-earth heart floated all of a sudden, and I was panicked.
Here, I would like to share with you a simple method to quickly determine your FOMO level.
Read the following 10 statements and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 is strongly disagree, 5 is completely agreeable).
An overall average score of >3 indicates a high level of FOMO.
- I'm worried that others have more meaningful experiences than I do;
- I was worried that my acquaintances had more meaningful experiences than I did;
- I feel uncomfortable when I find out that acquaintances are having fun in my absence;
- I feel anxious when I don't know what my acquaintances are up to;
- I care if I can understand the jokes told by acquaintances;
- Sometimes, I feel like I'm spending too much time chasing hot spots;
- It is very troublesome when I miss the opportunity to meet with acquaintances;
- When I have had a meaningful experience, it is important for me to share the details of the experience online;
- If I miss a planned meeting, it will be very bothered;
- When I'm on vacation, I also keep an eye on my friends.
* The above FOMO scale is translated from Przybylski (2013) and has not been rigorously revised academically and is for reference only
How we are
Jumping into the FOMO loop?
"Missing" is the norm, and the original "open one eye and close one eye" is in the past.
But living in a world where social media is so developed, the Internet simply doesn't give us the opportunity to "you take your Yangguan Road, I take my single-plank bridge".
Social networks will actively push an excess of data in front of us through "big data" algorithms, and we have to become people chasing parenting hotspots.
We passively become bystanders to other people's successful parenting, and it is inevitable to have a sense of loss and anxiety that many things are one step behind.
Like what
We worry that if we don't do something, our children will suffer a huge loss.
We can't help but want to compare, other people's children have succeeded, why is my child so bad, shouldn't it?
We worry about what may happen in the next stage of our child's life.
We may even make irrational decisions in a hot head:
They're all doing it, so it's definitely a useful parenting method, and I shouldn't be wrong to learn from them, right?
They must know something I don't know, and there must be an inside story for doing so, and I can't afford to miss this opportunity.
If I do this, my children will definitely have a great future......
Why don't I try it too?
Why are we like this?
Dr. Arti Gupta, clinical director of TherapyNest in Palo Alto, Calif., explained the origin of FOMO in a podcast:
FOMO feels like a combination of anxiety, rejection, self-loathing, and jealousy.
It stems from our social instinct to compare, and comparing ourselves to others can be said to be a necessary condition for our survival as human beings and part of the process of self-improvement and growth.
That is, comparison can be a motivation for our progress, but it has to be admitted that many times it also becomes a source of pain.
Russell once described it this way in "The Road to Happiness":
The jealous man once said: "Yes, it is a sunny day, it is spring, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, but I know that spring on the island of Sicily is a thousand times more beautiful than what is in sight, and the birds in the jungle of Erekang sing much more beautifully, and the roses of Sharon are lovelier than those in my garden." ”
As he turned these thoughts, the sun dimmed, the birds chirped meaninglessly, and the flowers seemed unworth looking forward to.
For parents, it is easy to compare the way we raise our children to others, especially when making major decisions for our children, and it is even more difficult to make decisions based on our own experience alone.
"I can't do the question, and I can't copy the answer?"
But there is more than one answer in life, there is no so-called standard answer, and it is even difficult to know what the scoring criteria are, so many times our comparison with others is meaningless spiritual internal friction.
From FOMO to JOMO
Is there a solution to FOMO's problem?
Of course.
This brings me to another word I learned: JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), which means to get rid of the unhappiness of missing out and reap the joy and happiness of the moment.
The essence of JOMO is to live in the moment and be content with your life.
If we can embrace JOMO, we can minimize the impact of FOMO and find more fun in missing out.
1. Acknowledging imperfections and missing out is the norm
The premise of FOMO is that we believe in seeing that other people's children are excellent and perfect.
Then, unconsciously compare your own child's weaknesses with other children's strengths.
But if you think about it for a while, you will find that the perfect image of "other people's children" may not be comprehensive and real.
When are we going to show our baby? Basically, it's when something good happens (the child has achieved good grades, and finally accomplished something after overcoming many difficulties...... In order to share the joy of their hearts.
In fact, no one will be less bad at raising a baby, and not saying it doesn't mean that there is nothing.
What's more, everyone's time, energy, and resources are limited, and it is impossible to have everything, try everything, and miss is the norm.
Just like two sides of a coin, if you get heads, you will inevitably miss tails.
And sometimes missing out isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Actor Ma Yili once posted on Weibo that she was strict with her eldest daughter since she was a child, making her very insecure, and it took two years for her eldest daughter to slowly dare to express herself.
She said angrily: "At that time, the concept of parenting was mostly to train independence, delay gratification, and frustration education from an early age, but now it looks like it's all nonsense!"
Many times our misses may be "Seon lost horses".
2. Prune ineffective social and toxic information connections
When we realize that we have been led by the outside world, and our emotions have been deeply affected by the actions of others, it is time to take action to get rid of the shackles of FOMO.
It's time to trim our lives and socialize, break toxic social ties, stop meaningless social comparisons, and return to a simple and peaceful life.
Stop endlessly browsing websites, social media, and refuse irrelevant information that interferes with our lives and disturbs our state of mind.
Stop chasing this wave of the tide like a big set, make yourself anxious and exhausted, keep your rhythm, and return to a simple and peaceful life.
Stop wasting time on ineffective or even toxic social interactions, spend time with family and friends, and go out into nature to heal your body and mind.
In this way, we can focus on the outside and look inward, rediscover the people and things that really matter in life, and re-lock our ultimate goals and pursuits.
3. Perceive the present moment and enjoy the present
When we are always worried about missing out, in fact, at that moment we are also missing out, missing the moment, missing out on real life.
When we feel FOMO, we can ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing.
For example, after school, we arranged for our children to be outdoors, and when we heard others say that our children would read after school, it only took a month to make rapid progress.
At this point, we may be shaken for a moment, "Why don't you take your children home and read now?"
Don't rush into action, we can first evaluate what we are doing at the moment, how it makes our children and ourselves feel, and remind ourselves why we chose this activity -
For exercise, for relaxation, for a healthier life, maybe just for tomorrow's physical test.
It doesn't matter what the reason is, we just need to remember that we have made the right choice for our child, trust our own judgment, and stick to it.
Thinking about it from another angle, many things are not things that we miss, but that we actively give up.
Because we choose things that are more important, more interesting, and more meaningful to us.
During the Spring Festival, when I was playing with my baby in Shangri-La, I swiped the circle of friends, and I just swept a friend who was posting the piano grade certificate that the child had just gotten, level 10.
A few years ago, I would probably like and leave a message to congratulate me, while the ideas in my head kept popping up like mushrooms after a rain:
If Dabao hadn't interrupted his piano learning, would he have been able to take the exam now, which should have helped him to go on to higher education, and maybe he could get more good job opportunities by playing the piano when he grows up......
Thinking about it, my mood suddenly fell.
But now, when I learn to look at missing out from a different perspective, it feels different.
This winter vacation, Dabao did not sign up for any classes, and also gave up the study of piano, compared with the children on the circle of friends and social media who have full winter vacation study plans, he may have lost a lot of opportunities to "overtake in corners".
But he has a lot of other things to gain as well:
Celebrate the Tibetan New Year with us in Shangri-La, and explore the wonders of the rainforest such as canopy forests and hanging gardens in Xishuangbanna...... While stretching the body and mind, it also broadens the horizons and restarts the brain.
I think and believe that this kind of experience is even more precious to Dabao's growth.
So, instead of FOMO, I cherish this precious vacation even more, and JOMO rises.
4. Experience happiness from a different perspective
There was half a glass of water on the table.
If we keep staring at the empty part, always thinking that the water is not full, always worrying that there will not be enough to drink, and we are afraid to drink while holding back our thirst, we think that it would be nice to have more water. If I didn't enjoy this half glass of water, I was still in a bad mood, and even nervous and anxious.
But if we pay more attention to the part that has water, think that I already have half a glass of water, so I don't have to worry about being thirsty. At the same time, it is only half a glass of water, but you can easily enjoy the happiness and satisfaction it brings.
It's the same with life.
From suffering from gains and losses to being satisfied, sometimes we just need to change our perspective and thinking.
When we no longer dwell on the inevitable misses, look from the outside to the inside and pay more attention to the inside, pay more attention to the present from far to near, learn to be grateful for the present and be grateful for what we have, the external environment does not need to change, and we can experience more happiness.
Let's get rid of FOMO and embrace JOMO.
It is enough to be in the moment and enjoy the moment.
Article source丨This article is transferred from "mom to see the world", ID: xyzmom, science education, natural parenting. Here, raising a baby is not only a science, but also a natural art.
References丨[1] https://effectiviology.com/fud-fear-uncertainty-doubt/
[2] How to overcome FOMO，https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1099226028
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