FOMO

Photo by Mwesigwa Joel on Unsplash

(FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out)

What are you afraid of missing out on?

Our school system goes back to in-person attendance today for those who choose it.

There has, of course, been much debate about this. (This post is NOT about the rightness/wrongness of in-person education right now.)

One point that keeps coming up for debate is parents’ fear of their child missing out.

Missing out on electives that aren’t offered online, missing out on a level of instruction that can only happen in person, missing out on the social interactions offered in a classroom (at least, as it used to be).

I’m not immune to those fears, but I’ve come to care less about them over the weeks.

In truth, of what am I afraid?

I think about the paths we had imagined together, paths that included hours of schooling and homework and extra-curricular activities. Paths that led to scholarships and acceptance into good colleges, which led to job opportunities and financial wellbeing and happiness.

And I think about how so much of that is an illusion.

I think about how those paths no longer lead to the same places. How the world as we know it, what “success” is as we* used to define it, simply doesn’t exist.

[An important side note: I speak from the perspective of a middle-class white woman. While I believe the world is changing for all people, I acknowledge that for myself and others of my race and in my socio-economic position, we are awakening to systems and structures that permitted that “success” …. systems and structures that simultaneously prohibited that version of success for others. It’s long past time that those ways of being are actively broken down and never rebuilt.]

The more we cling to our old ideas, the more fear we experience as the world keeps on changing.

Am I afraid for my kids and the opportunities they are missing out on because of Covid and how school systems must adjust? Sure.

But I also recognize that they are only missing out on my idea of what should be.

When I look around and can truly see what is, I am filled with gratitude. (This is usually the case.)

I note the suffering and anguish we are all experiencing, and my heart hurts. And…and. I am grateful that we are each alive to experience whatever it is that is presented to us.

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Back to the original question: What are you afraid of missing out on?

Is it possible to reframe the energy of your fear, to allow your attention to rest not with your ideas of what should be, but on the experience of what is?

Just some thoughts to consider for today.