When I was in high school I drove my parents crazy with my need to be in all the places that every single one of my friends was in. Even without cell phones or social media rubbing things in my face, I had a fear of being left out or missing something incredibly important. This fear probably stemmed from my desire to be cool or my need to feel like I was always in the know. My mom would ask me why I never seemed to want to sit still. During finals in college, I would get excited about having nothing to do and then after a day of relaxing, I would get bored and find myself needing to know where I should go or with whom I should be.
Fast-forward to becoming a mother and it’s like I gave birth to a little mirror.
My daughter is constantly worried about being late to her friend’s birthday party, fearful of missing all the excitement. If she knows we have plans on a certain day, she constantly asks me if we are missing the event, even if it is still hours away. She’s only six! I often find myself wondering: why do we live in a constant fear of missing out when all we need is each other?
The other night I had a work meeting scheduled with the Historic Committee in Clinton. The day of the meeting I knew I’d be going directly from my kids’ Christmas dance performance to the meeting. Unfortunately, I had been given the wrong time and it turned out that my meeting was scheduled during my kids’ performance. Because I was told the meeting would be quick, I promised my kids I’d be there for their final dance number, but the meeting started late and this sent me into a huge panic. I became fearful of being like the mom you see in movies — the one who misses her kids’ performances because of work — and I immediately imagined my kids’ disappointed looks as they searched the audience for me. Fortunately, the meeting was held close to where my kids were performing, so in high heels and with two sprained ankles, I made it just in the nick of time.
As I look back, I realize this was likely the first time I should’ve been in fear of missing out.
After all the years of fearing missing out for all the wrong reasons, I finally have moments I cannot miss. What I really should be fearful of is missing the time I’ll never get back with my kids. Instead of constantly checking my phone or social media, I should put my phone in a room and lock the door, and just be with the ones I love most. I will never miss the news that I received later than everyone else, but one day I will miss sitting and playing a game with my son or talking to my daughter about her day. If I am destined to live with a fear of missing out, these are the things I should worry about.
Every night this month, while tucking my daughter into bed and talking about our days, she asks me what I want for Christmas. I usually tell her I want all the hugs and kisses she can give me. The truth is that what I really want is to see the magic on my kids’ faces when they realize that Santa spun the room into a Christmas frenzy. My fear of missing out creeps in and reminds me that these moments are so fleeting. Maybe in some cases this fear is a good thing — as if it were telling me, “Hey, you really don’t want to miss this, you’ll never get it back.” Those magical Christmases at the age of two, three, four, and five have already come and gone and soon I’ll say the same thing about Christmas at age six.
A song by Lauren Daigle, which I have listened to over and over asks, “Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?” One day, as I was Christmas shopping and trying to check all the things off my long to-do list, these words stopped me in my tracks and I wasn’t sure why. I needed to grapple with them for an entire day before I could understand what they were saying to me. Then I realized that I’m not just fearful of missing all of my kids’ highs and lows; I’m fearful of missing the ordinary day. Not just the dance performance they’ve been working so hard on or their tears when they say someone wasn’t nice at school, but the mundane, every day, simple things we take for granted. The times when my son holds out his arms to give me a hug or the most adorable spirit my daughter brings to our mealtimes. It is in those moments that I find myself fearful of missing out, fearful that it all goes by too fast.
Sometimes our fear of missing out causes us to overcommit, stretching ourselves too thin. Sometimes our fear of missing out causes us to disappoint our kids or ourselves. But sometimes it puts us exactly where we need to be.
