Random Stuff - Chapter 282

But here’s the problem. Modern society multiplies our opportunities. Therefore, modern society also multiplies our opportunity costs, making it costlier and more difficult to commit all of our time and energy to anyone thing without feeling some form of remorse or regret.

Enter the concept of “FOMO” or “Fear of Missing Out.” We live a life that is constantly pelted with reminders of everything we are unable to become.

Back, say, 200 years ago, people didn’t have this problem. If you were born a farmer, you likely didn’t have many opportunities beyond farming. Moreover, you likely weren’t even aware of opportunities beyond farming. Therefore, devoting everything in your life to becoming an expert farmer involved next to no opportunity costs and next to no FOMO. After all, there was nothing else to miss out on.

In a bizarre and backward way, people back in the day could “have it all.” They had it all simply for the fact that there was nothing else for them to have.

Last month I wrote an article about life purpose. Something like 800 bazillion people shared it on Facebook and told me I was a cool kid. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love even thought it was neat. But this whole business of “life purpose” didn’t even exist until a few decades ago. As a question, it didn’t make sense.

In a way, your so-called life purpose crisis is a luxury, something you’re allowed to have as a result of the amazing freedoms the modern world has bestowed upon you.

I get emails all the time from people who complain about work/life balance. There are articles all over the mainstream media debating whether it’s possible to “have it all” — i.e., is it possible to be an all-star in your career and have a healthy family life and have cool and fun hobbies and be financially stable and have that s.e.xy bikini body and cook organic soufflé in your underwear while buying beachfront property on your new iPhone 6, all at the same time?

What’s changed is not our inability to manage our time or “balance our lives” between work and play. What’s changed is that we have more opportunities for work and play than ever before — more interests, more awareness of every potential experience we’re passing up. In short, we have more opportunity cost.

And we’re made aware of this in a terribly connected way each day. Every person who decides to sacrifice their dating life to advance their career is now bombarded constantly by the rambunctious s.e.x lives of their friends and strangers. Every person who sacrifices their career prospects to dedicate more time and energy to their family is now bombarded with the material successes of the most exceptional people around them at all times. Every person who decides to take a thankless but necessary role in society is now constantly drowned in inane stories of the famous and beautiful.

So how do we respond to this new, overly-connected culture? How do we manage our FOMO?