The Joy of Missing Out?

Disclaimer: “This whole story is completely true, except for all the parts that are totally made up.” (Inventing Anna, 2022)

“Dude, you won’t believe what happened at lunch,” Andy said.

“What?” I asked. “I’m still jealous I couldn’t make it.” We were meeting up for coffee a day after I had somehow organized a lunch I couldn’t even go to.

“I told you to just come!” Andy laughed.

“I know, I know,” I said. “I had already RSVP’d to another lunch and I couldn’t change it…anyway, what happened?”

“Okay, first of all…Eric brought nunchucks to lunch.”

“He what??” I almost spit out my coffee. “Why does he even have nunchucks?”

“It gets crazier,” Andy said. “He got to use them at lunch!“

“Um, what do you mean?”

“So we were eating delicious spicy things, and this random guy runs into the restaurant and starts yelling at the cashier. People start looking, and the cashier is a bit intimidated, and before I knew it Eric walks over and tells the guy to leave.”

“He’s a brave man,” I said, fascinated by Andy’s story. “I don’t think I would have done that.”

“I know right?” Andy continued, “They start getting louder and louder and the guy is kind of belligerent and starts to get physical, and finally Eric pulls out his nunchucks…”

“And beats him up??” I interrupted, half-joking.

“No…the guy just leaves after seeing them.”

“Ohh…that seems both anticlimactic and unbelievable,” I sipped my coffee, still in disbelief. “Eric is such a nice guy…why does he have nunchucks?”

“We had a conversation about that afterwards…he’ll have to tell you the story.”

“Geez,” I said. “I thought I just had normal FOMO about missing lunch, and now I really wish I were there.”

The timing was interesting because I was just listening to a podcast by Oliver Burkeman on time management and JOMO: the joy of missing out. I had heard the term before, but I never understood what it meant and how missing out could be joyful. In short, Oliver argues that as finite creatures, we will always miss out on something. Not only that, the fact that we’re missing out on other things is what makes what we’re doing meaningful. Said another way: being able to decide what to do with our lives is a privilege, and it’s probably better to embrace how we choose to spend our time than to be distracted by what might have been.

Theoretically this makes sense, but in practice it seems only natural to wish you were spending time with your friends instead of, as an example, a work Thanksgiving potluck. Maybe I also need to stay more in the moment and browse social media less so I could be more present to what I’m doing and less aware of what other people are doing. As for the spicy lunch I missed out on…I’ll just have to ask Eric to bring his nunchucks next time.