FoMO is a social media-induced acronym that popped up a few years ago. A Time article defines FoMO (fear of missing out) as ‘‘the uneasy and sometimes all-consuming feeling that you’re missing out – that your peers are doing, in the know about, or in possession of more or something better than you.’’ Social media has amped up this anxiety disorder by giving us constant exposure to everyone else’s “best life now.” We become anxious by reading everyone else’s awesomeness. We give in to the fear that somehow we’ve missed it (or will) if we don’t get on the stick.
FoMO is a more recent label for an ancient soul-sickness: regret. Regret cultivates a perspective that views our current reality or history from a disappointed place. Or worse, it distorts our view of the future, so that as we gaze down the road we are already disappointed or fearful of being disappointed before we even step out. That way of thinking depends on believing other options or better options exist, when in fact they don’t. Do you see how damaging that is? I’m not talking about a fatalistic worldview that prescribes a life out of our control. I’m talking about a mindset that frustrates us by constantly churning up options we never had access to in the first place. I’m talking about a mindset that makes the best we could do not good enough. And that makes us feel like victims.
In a Psychology Today article, the author writes,
The truth is, there’s no reality existing somewhere else that says, “Darn, you’re not going to get to join us over here in the happy life, where you could have ended up if you had made the right choice and picked the other path.” That other, imagined happy life is and has always been just a thought. The particular reality that would have come, had we made the other choice, never was and never will be our reality.
Can you hear how the mindset of regret can steal our peace by casting illusions, then making us believe we missed them? The fear of missing out is not of God, and the demon of regret is just that … a demon. Its sole purpose is discontent. It makes its living by speaking empty possibilities into our minds that don’t actually exist in reality, to paralyze us or at least keep us in a discontented space. This demon uses the tactic of comparison to distort what is real by comparing reality with something that doesn’t exist. Worse still, it creates a victim mentality by convincing us that circumstances beyond our control have stolen our ideal. It keeps us from owning our choices and embracing them, not as our plan B but as the reality we live in — a reality that a good and creative God can still make the most of.
Listen: When we fail to own our choices and live them out positively in partnership with the Holy Spirit, we not only miss out on the illusions we conjure up, but also on seeing God make the most of our reality.
And as I think of all the ways regret can steal my joy, here’s what really breaks me: Regret keeps me from giving my whole heart. To the extent that I live with regret or the fear of it, I will hold my heart and my hopes out for an imaginary “better.” I will externalize my discontent (“I never got what I deserve.”), feed my self-pity, and cause folks around me to also feel the frustration of never quite measuring up (after all, they live inside my world of regret).
The demon of regret has one goal: to get me to hold back from wholehearted love, surrender, devotion, commitment. And that’s why I’m convinced that a pattern of regret is not of God. It is a mindset that needs healing. If you find yourself wasting mental energy on the things that could have been, or on the better choices you could have made but didn’t (keep in mind that I’m not talking about willful sin here, but about your honest, best, if imperfect efforts), or on all the reasons this path you’re on is unsatisfying, I want to encourage you to consider that maybe you’re feeding into a demon intent on your discouragement. Journal your thoughts. Seek God’s healing. Ask him to open your mind to possibilities over regrets. Confess regret as a brokenness you’re living out of and ask God to transform your mind. Ask him to help you own your reality, so you can stop living in regret over your past or your future.
Regret is a lie. Meanwhile, the most creative Being in the universe stands ready to offer you an abundant life that doesn’t depend on your circumstances, but on His presence in the midst of them.
In the next post, we will look at three common areas where we tend to let regret have a voice in our lives.
