# Fear of missing out not only on events, but also on life opportunities
Everyone knows the feeling. A notification arrives, you open the app, and you discover that your friends were at a great event you didn't know about, or that you missed a sale that ended just yesterday. This unpleasant feeling, referred to in English by the acronym FOMO – fear of missing out – has become one of the most characteristic features of modern times. But what if this phenomenon runs much deeper than just envy over party photos or regret about a missed sale? What if FOMO actually reaches into far more fundamental areas of life – career decisions, relationships, lifestyle, or the values we hold?
Psychologists point out that FOMO is not just a superficial emotion associated with social media. According to a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, FOMO is closely linked to a sense of unfulfilled basic psychological needs – particularly the need for belonging, autonomy, and competence. In other words, if we feel that something essential is missing from our lives, we are more prone to envying others their opportunities, experiences, or decisions.
The problem is that most tips for dealing with FOMO focus exclusively on its surface-level manifestations – scrolling less, unsubscribing from newsletters, limiting time on Instagram. These are useful steps, but they are not enough. Truly managing FOMO requires reflecting on how we approach opportunities in general – not just those offered by the market, but those offered by life itself.
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FOMO and opportunities: the silent saboteur of good decisions
Imagine Markéta, a thirty-five-year-old graphic designer from Brno. She works freelance, has a stable client base, and earns enough for a comfortable life. Yet every morning she is overcome by restlessness when she reads LinkedIn. A colleague has launched her own agency. A friend from university has moved to Berlin and works for an international studio. Another acquaintance has completed a prestigious course in London. Markéta begins to doubt her own decisions – are they right? Is she missing out on something essential? Should she also "jump" at this or that opportunity?
This kind of FOMO is more insidious than the kind associated with sales or festival tickets, because it masquerades as legitimate ambition. The boundary between a healthy desire for growth and a destructive fear of missing out is thin and easily crossed. The key difference is whether a decision stems from one's own values and goals, or from what others are doing.
Sociologist Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, describes how an abundance of options does not lead to freedom but to paralysis and dissatisfaction. The more opportunities we see around us, the harder it is to make any decision – and the stronger the feeling that what we have chosen is not good enough. FOMO around opportunities is precisely this paradox of choice in practice.
Interestingly, this mechanism also operates in the realm of consumer behaviour and lifestyle. When someone decides to live more sustainably – to shop more mindfully, to choose quality over quantity, to reduce impulse purchases – they encounter exactly this type of FOMO. People around them are buying new things, following trends, trying out novelties. And a person who has consciously chosen a different approach may feel they are missing out. Yet in reality, they are doing quite the opposite – consciously choosing what they want to let into their life, and what they do not.
How to stop reacting and start choosing
Managing FOMO around opportunities begins with one fundamental shift in thinking: from a reactive approach to a proactive one. A reactive person constantly monitors what is happening around them and makes decisions based on what they see others doing. A proactive person knows what they want and evaluates opportunities through the lens of their own priorities.
But how do you make such a shift in practice? One of the most effective tools is regular reflection on your own values. It doesn't sound exciting, but it works. Psychologists at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley recommend regularly asking yourself questions such as: What brings me genuine satisfaction in life? What would I do even if I knew no one would see it? What decision would I be grateful for in five years? These questions help filter out the noise – that is, opportunities that are appealing only because they are visible – from those that truly align with who we are and what we want.
Another practical step is deliberately limiting information overload. This does not mean closing your eyes to the world, but setting filters. Who do you follow on social media? What newsletters arrive in your inbox? What conversations regularly leave you feeling inadequate? Digital hygiene is not just about spending less time in front of a screen – it is about consciously choosing what you feed your attention with.
A natural part of this process is also learning to work with the concept of JOMO – joy of missing out. This seemingly paradoxical concept was described, for example, by author Christina Crook in her book The Joy of Missing Out, and has since gained an increasing number of followers. It involves the conscious decision to not take advantage of a particular opportunity and to experience that as freedom rather than loss. "The best decisions I ever made were the ones where I said no," says many a woman in her forties who has stopped chasing every job offer and instead focused on what truly gives her meaning.
Mindful consumption as a remedy for FOMO
Interestingly, one of the most concrete ways to build resilience against FOMO around opportunities lies in the realm of everyday shopping and consumer decisions. Shopping is an area where FOMO manifests most visibly and most quickly – and where it is also easiest to begin working on changing habits.
Mindful consumption – an approach in which we ask ourselves before every purchase whether we truly need the item, whether it aligns with our values, and whether it will bring us lasting satisfaction – is essentially daily training in proactive thinking. Instead of reacting to sales, trends, and marketing impulses, we determine for ourselves what we want to let into our lives.
This approach is advocated by proponents of the slow living movement or minimalism, but there is no need to be a radical minimalist. It is enough to ask yourself one simple question before each purchase: Am I buying this because I want it, or because I'm afraid of missing out? The difference between these two motivations is precisely the difference between a free decision and FOMO.
Mindful consumption also naturally leads to greater satisfaction with what we already have. Research consistently shows – for example, studies published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology – that people who shop mindfully and less impulsively report higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of anxiety. This is therefore not just a matter of ethics or ecology, but has a concrete impact on mental wellbeing.
The same principle applies to opportunities in a broader sense. A person who learns to consciously choose what they buy gradually builds the capacity to consciously choose which opportunities they accept as well – professional, social, and relational. It is a transferable skill, trained in small things and expressed in large ones.
Of course, this is not easy. We live in a time when opportunities are presented as unlimited and when declining anything can seem like weakness or laziness. Social media constantly showcases those who "seize every chance", who "haven't wasted a minute", and who "live life to the full". But living life to the full does not mean grabbing every opportunity – it means consciously choosing those that truly align with who we are.
There is also a pragmatic argument: time and energy are finite resources. Every yes we say to one opportunity is automatically a no to another. If we say yes to everything, we are not really choosing at all – we are merely reacting. And that is precisely the breeding ground for FOMO, because in such a life we can never be certain that we have made the right decision.
Back to Markéta from Brno. What would truly help her is not to watch less LinkedIn or to stop taking an interest in what others are doing. What would help her is knowing why she works as a freelancer, what suits her about it, and what kind of lifestyle she wants to lead. With that clarity, her colleagues' stories would cease to be a source of anxiety and would become mere information – interesting, but not threatening. Their path would cease to be the measure of her own worth.
FOMO around opportunities is, in the end, always about one thing: the degree of trust in yourself and in your own decisions. The more firmly we stand in what we want and why we want it, the less we are unsettled by seeing what others are doing. And that is a skill which – fortunately – can be learned. Step by step, decision by decision, large and small.
