The joy of missing out

Lately I’ve realized that one of the most tiring things isn’t the work itself.

It’s the feeling that I always have to know what’s going on.

I open Threads and there’s a new tool or a new idea. I open X and there’s a new skill I supposedly have to learn. I open LinkedIn and see someone else building something. I open YouTube and another topic shows up that feels important to understand.

At first I thought this was good. It meant I was always up to date.

But over time I noticed that too many updates can make you lose direction. Plenty of things that were never part of my plan suddenly felt important, just because I kept seeing them. So I wanted to learn this, try that, start a new project, change the way I work.

When the last thing I started wasn’t even finished yet.

That’s probably why I’ve come to like the idea of JOMO, the joy of missing out. I first heard about it on a friend’s blog.

There’s relief in realizing you don’t have to keep up with everything. Not knowing the newest tool is fine. Not following the latest trend is fine. Even if other people tried something long before you did, that’s fine too.

I’ve started enjoying the simple questions again:

• What am I actually going after?
• Which skills really matter for me?
• What do I need to finish right now?

The answers are often much shorter than everything on my timeline. And strangely, once I let a few things pass me by, my head feels a lot calmer.

I still like learning new things. I still follow what’s happening in tech, and I’m still curious about a lot. I just focus on what actually matters to me.