Embracing JOMO
A few months ago I listened to an ear-opening (?) episode of Note to Self podcast about JOMO. JOMO stands for Joy Of Missing Out. You have probably heard to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Something is happening right now, you are not part of it and you don’t like it, even worse you regret it. JOMO is the opposite, and no it’s not misanthropy.
Last time I felt FOMO I was 15 and my parents forbade me to go to a trip with my friends. It was summer, it was Sunday, TV was rerunning old stuff. I was angry, bored and I couldn’t help but think “I am sure my friends are having fun right now”.
I like when a friend of mine tells an adventure and I can say “I was there”. Even better I like when my friend is telling our adventure and asks me to fill in some details. It sounds like a sort of double proof that “I was there”.
Remember when Gmail was released? The roll out was based on invitations. Clearly they did it to manage traffic spikes, but one of the side effects was FOMO. For a while, being one of the few thousand people on the planed with a Gmail account meant being part of a very exclusive club.
I am learning to embrace JOMO. I am learning that I don’t die and I am not a lesser person for discovering something years after it has been announced. The internet has many problems but not the one of memory. If there’s somebody writing a great blog I will discover it eventually. If there’s a cool tool/framework now in its infancy that will become very useful and popular I will find it later.
There are so many interesting podcasts that started five or even ten years ago. Episodes are still online, I download them and I enjoy them. Unlike my younger self, not even for a second I think “why didn’t I discover this before?”
WWDC 2016 was announced today, in a pretty awkward way. I think I won’t go. I know I’ll miss meeting my friends, chatting about new APIs and making new friends. But I’ll embrace it. I am lucky to host a podcast that allows me to chat with interesting people and spread their message. I also designed my schedule so that I can have a voice chat with at least 2-3 friends a week. It’s not as “complete” as a face to face meeting, but voice is a great carrier of meanings and feelings.
Instead of concentrating my sociality in an intense week in San Francisco I am enjoying it week by week, and I am liking it very much.