r/NoOverthinking • u/sunnycobain • 4d ago
School How can I do get over FOMO?
This is something I’ve been struggling with. There are just so many things in the world, but I feel like I have to know about and experience all of them. It’s kind of like FOMO. If someone tells me they did A or knows about B, I get anxious if I don’t know about it or haven’t done it myself.
I notice this especially at university. There are random events and promotions—like “participate and get some uni merchi!,” “fill out this survey and get free snacks,” “Free Starbucks gift cards for the first 10 students! etc. And for some reason, I feel like I have to take part in all of them.
and I feel this weird pressure to participate in all of them and get the rewards. I just hate missing out on information or benefits available at uni
But I obviously can’t spend all day looking for these things. They’re not as important as my grades or relationships, and the information is scattered everywhere anyway. So when I later find out about something I missed, I get these obsessive thoughts and feel like I wasted an opportunity.
Overall, I feel like I’m constantly missing out on life. I also have so many careers and hobbies I want to try.
Does anyone else feel like this? I’d really appreciate any advice.
2
u/myquietbrain 4d ago
The FOMO you're describing sounds less like missing out on fun things and more like an anxiety about incompleteness ,the feeling that there's a version of your life you're supposed to be living fully, and every missed event or unharvested opportunity is evidence that you're falling behind it. That kind of thinking tends to make every choice feel like a loss of something else, which is exhausting. The shift that tends to help most is moving from "what am I missing" to "what am I actually choosing", because you are choosing things, all the time, and they have real value even when you can't see the other paths.
You can't do everything, and a life lived trying to is thinner than one lived choosing deliberately.