Why do I have a bad case of FOMO?

Amjed: 0:00

She sells seashells by the seashore. Just listened to a comedian the other day talking about why would she do that. What a bad business idea. But yeah, in today's episode I was exploring some of my recent struggles with FOMO, if you're missing out, and stumbled across a very interesting visual. I just felt like it fell out of nowhere and landed in my head about a beach. So and seashells. So it was an interesting exploration without any pre-planning.

Amjed: 0:38

Hi, this is Amjad, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world. Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life, sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way. May you find some benefit here. That is through me, not from me. I must warn you to enter at your own risk, for in this room my humanity is showing. Welcome, my fellow humans, to episode 44 of my Humanity Showing.

Amjed: 1:14

And a couple of interesting things. Well, I guess. First an announcement. I finally went out and started. I guess I purchased the domain name and started thinking about a spinoff series. So, in case you're interested, thinking about doing a spinoff series where I actually have guests on and it's more of a conversation between me and other people.

Amjed: 1:47

So one of the beauties of this one is, I'm not dependent on someone else to show up or coordinating times and schedules and making sure that they have good audio on their end and then figuring out how to merge the two. So that's one of the reasons why I started with a single person and then two. I thought it might be hard to encourage someone else to come on and be vulnerable with me. It's like, hey, how do you wanna join a public diary? But so, yeah, coming soon. Our humanity is showing. Now I say coming soon. I don't know how soon that is. I'm actually going out of town for a couple of weeks and then, I don't know, it may be early 24 by the time I finally get that thing off the ground, but I'm just excited that I'm gonna be trying something different. So I wanted to throw that out there. If you're listening and interested in possibly being a guest on the show and I say show, I hate calling this thing that on the podcast and want to have a dialogue and be vulnerable and be authentic and share stuff that you probably afterwards are gonna say, oh man, I can't believe. I said that In knowing that I don't edit, or I very rarely edit unless it's like really something significant, and I might take a word out or something, but that's about it. Where I like remove something that might identify someone that doesn't wanna be identified. I've done that a couple of times. But yeah, so if you're interested, email me at umjithatmyhumanityshowingcom. So with that, that was an announcement. I wanted to get that off my chest because I was really excited about that actually.

Amjed: 3:32

And the second thing is that well, not second thing. There was something else. I don't remember what it was, but I mentioned the trip, coming up nervous about that, anxious about getting ready for it. It's like a weird mixed experience. Like part of me is very, very, very excited for the trip because going to some places, we're actually going to where my wife and I first met and where we got married and we haven't been back. I haven't been back in 27 years. So it's just the overall really, really exciting to be able to have some time away and be able to do that. And it's partially a spiritual journey. So excited about that, and large part actually.

Amjed: 4:18

But then there's a part of me that's just the FOMO and the fear of what you know, not getting everything done that I promised I would get done or could get done before leaving. And then you know the stuff I'll miss while I'm gone, and then the makeup work I'll have to when I get back, cause I really struggle with makeup work. I don't know if I've shared this on this podcast yet or not, but I really struggle with the fear of makeup work. I remember, as a matter of fact, as a child and again I can't remember if I've shared this, but as a child my mother would have to sit on me to ensure that I did not go, get on the bus to go to school if I had a fever. And you know, I remember times where I had like over a hundred fever and my mom's literally sitting on me while the bus is picking the other children up to go, because I did not want to miss school.

Amjed: 5:09

And there were two main reasons I didn't want to miss school. Three, actually three. One I hate makeup work and I hate going back the next day and it's like, okay, now not only do I have to do today's work, but I have to do yesterday's work too, and oh my gosh, that is so stressful for me and I would just rather not be gone, so I don't have to deal with that. Second thing is I'm an extrovert and I enjoyed being with all my friends and I didn't want to miss not being with my friends. And third is I did not want to stay home and watch soap operas. So those were the three reasons why I hated makeup. I hated missing school, but the makeup work, you know, I just it really, really struggled with that and that's me.

Amjed: 5:52

Taking time off from work represents makeup work to me, because now I'm going to come back and have to catch up for being gone and I'm also where I'm going. I can't take any of my stuff with me. So I will be completely unplugged from work and that will be an interesting experience. I will just be disconnected. So when I come back, it will be a true. I may have to remember my passwords and that may be. Take me a minute and remember what I was working on before I left. I mean, hopefully I can still spell my name when I get back, but we'll see. So, yeah, that's another big, I guess, event happening in my life.

Amjed: 6:39

So quick update about that and then, you know, I guess, with it let's just go ahead and let's follow that thread and see where it goes, because I did have another topic, but I can record that for another episode. So I'm going to I'll pause the other topic for now and just save it for a future episode or maybe the next one, but and just continue to follow the thread a little bit. So I want to talk a little bit more about my difficulty in stepping away and you know I was having a conversation with someone at work that I respect quite a bit, that I work with, who is an expert I consider an expert in burnout, in employee burnout, and I know I've talked about burnout before but I've been thinking about it more because you know, in my, I think in the other discussion I don't remember what episode it was now, but I think it's most likely evident by the name but I, you know, I talked about how I believe that burnout is the result of friction and that as long as I'm not moving against, emotionally, pushing against whatever it is that I'm doing or not doing, that you know I'm less likely to burnout or I may not burnout at all, but I think there's maybe. I've been reflecting a lot about that, talking to some folks about that, and I still believe that there may be, there may be. Well, I'm starting to believe. Let me say that, not still believe, starting to believe that there may be other factors, and one of them is just my share inability to step away and let things go. So, talking about this FOMO, fear of missing out, this fear that somehow I'm gonna miss out on something really important and then I'm gonna be lost later and not be able to put things together, and that's a real struggle.

Amjed: 8:45

So I was, like I said, I was, having this conversation with someone who I consider to be an expert on employee burnout and we were talking about email and how, for me, you know just, I really struggle with managing email. I feel like that I get way too many, can't keep track of them and it's just a constant. I feel like I'm constantly swimming in a sea of quicksand. That's how it feels like I'm just, I'm literally suffocating and drowning in the sea of emails and you know, I know some of my coworkers that do a much better job with that, but I really struggle. I really, really struggle and I've been looking for options, talking to some people, reflecting on it, praying about it and just looking for a path to better manage email.

Amjed: 9:33

But it was really interesting in this conversation I was having with this person who said that part of it is also fear of missing out, feeling like I have to read every email or I have to be a part of every email group, like distribution groups and things, so that I don't miss something, which you know it's if I can find ways to unsubscribe from things that may reduce my email load. And I thought that was a really interesting point of there. Once again, that my grip on reality where, you know, I see the world from a very interesting lens and okay, so I'm this is me exploring uncharted territory, so let's see where this goes. But you know, I have this kind of lens where I see the world, as you know, and everything that's going on in it, as like opportunities, like a sea of opportunities, and every opportunity for me represents a chance to either seize that opportunity or miss that opportunity. And so this is really interesting because I don't think I've ever really thought of it this way before. This is brand new.

Amjed: 10:56

Like I said, uncharted territory and I just noticed that I'm even I'm looking in a different direction, because I normally like stare at the little screen that I'm recording off of, but I found myself, I find myself like staring off into space right now because I'm trying to. I'm really trying to feel my way through this conversation Okay enough with the third wall description of like what I'm doing, breaking the third wall. So if I see the world as a, it's like a. It's almost like a binary black and white perception. It either is an opportunity or a missed opportunity. It's either a seized opportunity or a missed opportunity, and everything fits into that. Every experience fits into that bucket of either I got it or I didn't get it. I got it or I didn't get it. So yeah, as I'm having this thought out loud, what that is making me wonder is what? How else could I view the world? Is there another perception out there, a different way of looking at things? So, rather than this, seeing everything as an opportunity, I guess what I've always aspired to is to look at things more as an experience, and that not all experiences are meant for me to have. So if I do that, if I look at it from that lens, then what that tells me is there.

Amjed: 12:42

This is going to be a really weird metaphor analogy, but we'll see. We'll see where this one goes to. But it's like I'm walking along the beach. So this is life. I start on one end of the beach and I'm walking to the other side of the beach and I have water splashing on my right as the the waves are coming in and I have more sand and land on my left and as I'm walking down this beach and the Sun right about.

Amjed: 13:09

In this analogy I don't know what this has to do with anything but the Sun in my I'm just giving you my visual the Sun is maybe slight, it's not high noon, it's a little bit to one side, so I would say east to west. In this analogy, in this visual that I'm having right now I'm taking you on this weird journey with me is the east would be off the water. So I guess it's a product of me growing up in the United States and the Atlantic Ocean and I'm so walking and I've got water on my right and the Sun would have risen over. The water has now passed over my head and is slightly To the west, which is on my left, which is where the sand and the land are, and so this is my life journey. I'm like 51 years old. The Sun is part way through, it's past the midpoint and it's gone a little bit past and I Came Sort of as I'm traveling, there's this two sides of my life there's this is kind of really this is a weird analogy.

Amjed: 14:26

I don't know never had this before or never had this visual that there is a More like Achieving side and a play side is what I'll call them. So the water to me represents kind of the fun side, the exploration, the innovation, the just, you know, splashing around and looking at the world from that perspective of you know what's out there and what fun can be had. And then the land represents that solid ground. There's a path, there's a career, there's a plan, there's a, you know, marriage and kids and grandkids, and there's this solid pathway, solid ground on on my left and Maybe in the future, as I get farther along, you know, it's like maybe that, and Well, I'm walking along the shoreline, walking along the shoreline and I'm picking seashells. This is look, I promise you, this is like you're, yeah, I'm. We're discovering this together, because I've never had these thoughts before, so I don't know where.

Amjed: 15:39

It's just random and maybe it's coming through me and not from me, as I say in the intro, but in this visual that I'm having right now, as I'm reflecting on all of this, I'm picking seashells and those seashells to me represent in this Scenario, in this visual. They represent the experiences. So as I pick up each seashell, that's, it's another experience. And so recently it feels like I've been walking along the sand Looking at seashells and trying to grab every single seashell I can get my hands on, like, and anyone that I can't pick up, that I'm not able to reach before I take the next step, or it breaks before I can pick it up, or it turns out to be not a seashell, but maybe it's a fragment that looked like a full seashell but it really wasn't anything like. That is To me a Like, you know, those missed opportunities and all the seashells I'm grabbing are like, okay, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that. And then I look over and I see other people walking and they've got some really pretty shiny seashells and I'm thinking, well, I never got to do that. So I'll give you an example.

Amjed: 17:02

Yesterday I did something very unusual For me. I've never something I've never done before. It was on my bucket list. I was able to do it and, you know, now I could say I've had the experience. I'm not entirely sure it's. For me it's a little was a different experience, but I went to a book I tour session.

Amjed: 17:24

So one of them, one of an author that I really like, just released a new book and there was a event where you could go and pick up a signed copy of the book and listen to the author discuss just things about the book that without spoilers, and then also talk about, you know, the writing process and the creative writing process and things like that, and I've always aspired to be a creative writer. When I was younger, I used to have this fantasy of one day writing and publishing a science fiction or a fantasy book, and so I've always had that kind of image or that idea. And I'm listening to this author describe her process and I, you know, I made a writer books and I'm actually going through one right now and it's just so interesting because there's this talent there, this ability to take a story and create it in such a visual way, and she talked about that. She talked about having a movie in her head and then being able to translate it onto paper in such a way that I someone else like myself can read that story ink on the paper and forget the reading a book, and actually it's as if I'm watching a movie, because the descriptions are so vivid and so real and the story is so real. It almost feels like I'm watching the scene unfold before my eyes.

Amjed: 18:50

And the whole time there's this thought going through my head that for like 20 years now I've been working on a book that hasn't made a whole lot of progress. I mean, I'm on third or fourth version of it and it's you know, it started out being more like a short story. I think I actually wrote it as a short story once and I took it to a writer's guild and I got I received a lot of feedback that this is not a short story, this is a book. You need to turn this into a book and I'm like I don't know how to do that, but just by adding a lot more detail and a lot more story and a lot more things to it. And I paused because I started to feel like this was an over dependence on fantasy for me, or imagination, and I wanted to get grounded in reality a little bit more. So I stepped away from writing and since then I've been really struggling to get my writer's block unblocked and get the courage to start writing again in any capacity, even nonfiction, and so I, you know, end up spending more time watching things, and this has been my one creative outlet, which is not even really creative. This is more reflective.

Amjed: 19:56

But I'm listening to this author talk about her writing the book, and the whole time I'm thinking like, yeah, there's a missed opportunity. There was a missed chance in my life where maybe I could have written something, or maybe one day I will or won't. But as of right now, she's holding this shiny, shiny seashell. She has like 23, 22, 23 books to her name that are all have done exceptionally well, and so she's holding 23 of these seashells that are of a particular color and type that I always wished I had, and I don't have a single one. I have like a little sketch of one, you know, drawn onto the palm of my hand, of like, yeah, one day maybe I'll get one of those kind of thing. And so it's this missed opportunity.

Amjed: 20:48

In the meantime, I'm walking around. I can't even walk because I have so many of these seashells, because I'm just grabbing every opportunity. I'm signing up for everything. I was like, yeah, do that too, I'll do that too, I'll do that too, I'll do that too. And to where there's no space for anything else. So if I see a shiny seashell like that, I can't say you know what. I'm going to just spend like 20 minutes every day or 15 minutes every day writing and see what happens and just kind of make stuff up and start typing and see where it leads and see if that helps massage those muscles and get them back working again, where I can write again.

Amjed: 21:27

I have no capacity because I'm holding so many seashells in my head right now and for each one I've got to take it and clean it and, you know, figure out where to put it in my little bag, and so I haven't. They haven't even made it to the backpack yet. They're all still in my hands. There's just this full of sandy seashells in my hands and that's me just trying to squeeze out of life every drop of opportunity, every chance of doing something and not missing anything. So, like I said, maybe instead another way that I can, now that I'm reflecting on this and I can see it for what it is, there's an opportunity here now, and the opportunity is for me to read, not opportunity as in like another seashell, but opportunity to change my approach. So instead of, you know, I'm going to grab every opportunity.

Amjed: 22:26

Maybe it's about being really selective and not viewing the world as, oh, there's a seashell I picked up and there's one that I missed, there's a seized opportunity, there's a missed opportunity, and instead seeing it as which one of these is really meant for me and the rest are not, do I really have to have it all? Like? What am I trying? It's like I'm trying to fill a void with all these experiences, with all these things that I'm trying to do or accomplish or see, or you know, whatever it is that I'm like shoving all these seashells into my bag because my bag feels empty, because there's this void, there's this feeling or this sense of a void. It reminds me of that.

Amjed: 23:19

Oh, my gosh, I forgot the name of the book Pilgrims Promise Maybe. Hmm, I don't know. I'll have to look it up real quick, but you know where the main character is walking and he has this bag and it just keeps getting heavier and heavier and heavier with the burdens of the world and pilgrims let's see where to look at it Progress. I always call it the pilgrims promise, the pilgrims progress, by John Bunyan. I think that's the book I'm talking about. Yeah, so it's just an interesting idea of me trying to fill this backpack and fill it with every opportunity, because I'm trying to fill a void inside of me. It's a little bit different than the story, but this allegory in the pilgrims progress, but I'm still. It's that same kind of concept where I'm trying to shove and fill my world.

Amjed: 24:22

Huh, this has really got me thinking because I, like I said, I don't think I've reflected on this much. I mean, I haven't had the mental clarity to even stop and say what am I doing? Like what are you? What are you doing? What are you? Where are you going? Like, what's going on here? And yeah, it's an interesting, interesting reflection today. Thank you for coming with me on this journey, because we were literally charting uncharted territory here and I'm mapping out new, new thoughts and so, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to take that and spend some time just reflecting more about is can I start to practice a different approach? I don't know, I don't know, I may not have the emotional capacity, because that void may be so powerful that I'm just sucked in and I I'm on autopilot and the process to start to change. That will take some time and an intention to being intentional about it and I need maybe this time away and I'm going on this trip will be a good opportunity.

Amjed: 25:34

It's perfect timing to have this reflection now, because there's a chance to spend the two weeks like really detoxing from all of that, because, in a way, I'm stepping away from the beach or I'm going out into the water, I come back and, you know, after swimming in the water for a little bit, come back and there's an opportunity to start a different approach to how I approach these other opportunities and these sea shells and how I view them and how I collect them, I guess. So I'm going to stop there and switch to the random message of the episode and let's see. I've got my little bucket here of fortune cookie messages. I've added a few new ones. We went to our favorite restaurant the other day and got some more fortune cookies, so I've got some more in here and I'm reaching in, reaching in, pulling one out. So it's an interesting one. It's a little bit longer than they usually are.

Amjed: 26:37

It says you can't make someone else's choices, you shouldn't let someone else make yours. So that, yeah, that's interesting. You can't make someone else's choices, you shouldn't let someone else make yours. It's similar to a quote that I have in my office that I reflected and put up there one day and it's I think it's called sanity and it's like choosing my reactions and letting others choose theirs. So it's about the you know like how I respond to things and being you know, like being very intentional about how I respond and letting other people respond in the way they're going to respond and not be so worried about it, not try to control other people's reactions to things. They're emotional responses, I think is the word I used in the quote like emotional responses. This is similar, but it sounds like it's broader in the sense that it's talking about just choices in general, that I can't make choices for other people.

Amjed: 27:41

I used to, I used to have this saying. I said I can't control how other people think, act or feel and really help me. When my kids were younger and they you know I would I wanted them to see the world a certain way or behave a certain way and not get upset when I told them, okay, playtime was over, but I can't control how they think, act or feel and I just had to let them go. And I can't even control how I think, act or feel, but I do have a choice about how much power I give away to others and do I allow them to just take over and run? And in some cases, like I guess, what I've been doing is giving my power away to people not others necessarily in this case but to my instinctual need, my I want to call it insecurity, maybe that's the word I've been looking for.

Amjed: 28:41

This whole episode is insecurity. I've got, I have some sort of insecurity where I feel like I've got to grab every single one of those seashells and, you know, I've just been a victim of that insecurity and that security has been running me in many ways. It hasn't been, just, you know, so toxic that it's disrupting my life, but it has been challenging from that perspective. So, yeah, really interesting episode. You just what you just witnessed was a live therapy session, I guess, where me and myself over here talking and getting therapy, you know like, while I'm reflecting through, and it's interesting how clearly and vividly that vision of the beach and the seashells just popped into my head out of nowhere. I just find that really interesting. Well, thanks for listening and thanks for joining me for today's exploration, and if you find something of benefit here, I hope you come back. Thanks.