After listening to Rachel Martin for a few years on NPR’s weekday morning program and later on Sunday mornings, it has been quite an interesting change to listen to her when she talks with people of different faiths in her series on “Enlighten Me.”
In the latest segment, Martin talks with Buddhist monks. Buddhist monks who were White Christians before their, ahem, reincarnation as Buddhists:
Two Buddhist monks run Empty Cloud. Their names are Ayyā Somā and Bhante Suddhāso. Ayyā Somā is Italian, and before she shaved her head and put on the robes, she was a fashion journalist.
Bhante is a soft-spoken guy from Colorado with small, round glasses. He grew up in a conservative evangelical family and found Buddhism after college.
During their conversation, they talk about giving up, renouncing, the modern life:
"The word renunciation for some people has a negative connotation," Bhante says. "But for us, renunciation means recognizing that we don't need something in order to be happy."
For example, he explains, "When I was a lay person, which was a very long time ago now — 15 plus years ago – I needed to always have music playing."
If it wasn't music in the car, he was listening to headphones. "Like, it was just constant. And so, then getting into this life, it's like, well, one of our rules is that we don't listen to music. So, clearly, I thought I needed that, but I don't need it."
"Do you miss music, though?" I ask. "No," he replies with a laugh.
Ayyā Somā chimes in: "Essentially, from the fear of missing out from FOMO, we go to JOMO, the joy of missing out."
I do not feel compelled to disconnect from mainstream life, but I do worry a lot about the state of humanity in which quite a bit of social life is driven by FOMO. It is not that FOMO is new in the age of social media. Kids even back in the prehistoric analog era feared missing out, were worried that the cool kids were doing exciting things, and perhaps phoned each other to find out what was going on. Adults too were no different, though it was a different kind of a fear that they were missing out.
The web and social media have vastly amplified this fear of missing out. People see postings on social media, for instance, of “friends” who are vacationing, at music concerts, living in fancy homes, whatever, and FOMO fever reaches high temperatures. FOMO apparently is so overwhelming that people feel the urge to reach for their smartphones even when they are socializing in the real world with fellow humans.
For a healthy life, one might want to ditch FOMO and cultivate JOMO—the joy of missing out—though not necessarily by retreating into a monastery.
One of the best decisions that I made on this front, after many, many attempts, was to delete my Facebook account, which I finally did in April 2018. Now, without a Facebook account, without WhatsApp and Insta, which I never used to begin with, I live a joyful life without knowing what my cousins and friends are up to.
But, isn’t this how we lived for the longest time? When we met cousins and friends in the real world, we would update each other about our lives right? In between, we might have traded letters and photos. Maybe sent “I wish you were here” picture postcards from our vacations just to rub it in ;)
You too can enjoy your life, again, by missing out:
Jomo is a rather unusual form of joy because it involves positive feelings due to the absence of an event or experience rather than the presence of a positive event. But that doesn’t make it any less valuable for supporting wellbeing.
In many ways, jomo can be considered the opposite of “fomo” – the fear of missing out. Fomo involves experiencing anxiety and other negative emotions because of a concern that somehow other people are having more fun, living a better life or having better experiences than you are.
The absence of an experience being joyful. Almost sounds like a koan, doesn’t it?
A prerequisite for jomo is to learn to value our limited time and how it is spent. In doing so, we create opportunities to experience the joy of being present. We value what we have, rather than worrying about what we may be missing out on.
We can also experience the joy of fulfilling commitments that are valuable to us, which can foster self-esteem and boost our personal confidence.
To value what we have is no different from the simple directions that grandma gave us if we kids ever complained when we were eating, complaining about the extra appalam that another kid might have on their plate. She had a simple and direct response: Stop looking at other plates and eat what is in front of you.
When we look around, we are certain to find that there are others with more material comforts, others who are on dream vacations, others who have the latest gadgets, … but, hey, eat what is in front of you!
Developing a more grateful mindset can also foster jomo. Shifting focus to what you have rather than what you don’t have makes it easier to appreciate the positives in life. This may reduce fomo and increase jomo, because what you are missing isn’t as valuable as what you already have.
I have blogged a bit about developing a grateful mindset, and living a life of gratitude. As I noted in this post less than a month ago, gratitude is not a quality that we are born with, but is a quality that we can, should, cultivate, fully aware that the benefits accumulate over the long haul. Being grateful for the literal and metaphorical plate of food that is right in front of us means that we worry less about fomo, and there is a great deal of joy from missing out on events and experiences.