The terminology may
be new to me, but the concept certainly holds appeal. Unfortunately my long-held pattern
of comparing myself to others presents a challenge.
The joy of missing out essentially means being happy with what you have
right now, and not wishing you had someone else's life – someone more
glamorous, more popular, more successful. (This isn't, however, the same as
staying stagnant and not pushing yourself towards your dreams.) It means being
OK with sitting on the couch on a Saturday night devouring corn chips and
watching The Big C box set while your friends are posting
party pics on Facebook. And being OK with that because you have other
things to look forward to. That’s next-level contentment, right there.
It comes back to acceptance. If you're happy with where your life is at
– or even if you're not, but you believe it will change – you have no need to
compare yourself with others. If you can nail that, missing out really could be
a joy.I like this. I wish I could honestly look at other people's lives and not feel that I am missing out. Back in early January I wrote about my struggle with comparison on social media. Well, I'm still struggling (clearly). Maybe I always will.
Two months ago I felt
so miserable about how my life compared to other people (ie unfavourably) that
I
decided the best solution was to unfollow all the people on Instagram who
were doing life better than me. People on incredible trips overseas. People
loved up, and flaunting it (which they're perfectly entitled to do). People with strong eyebrow game. This seemed like such a good idea!
It was a terrible
idea.
In my defence, I was
the far side of a bottle of shiraz at the time. But, still. While many of these
people were high profile, some were regular people… my friends. One of my mates called me out on this – and good on her – by asking why I'd cut her off. Ouch. I still have not been able to bring myself to refollow these people –
it's just too embarrassing. How do I explain? "Sorry for unfollowing you,
I was feeling inadequate and jealous." Yeah, that'll go down well.
I'm well aware that
what we see on social media are very carefully curated snippets of people’s
lives that are not indicative of their reality. I know this, and yet, I still find
myself comparing my behind the scenes with the beautiful people’s highlights
reels, as the saying goes. Also, removing the triggers (ie people whom I might envy at any given moment) from my eyeline is hardly going to help me resolve the root problem: a lack
of self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance is
something that comes up for me time after time in my reiki sessions, so I know
that this, or a lack thereof, is playing a big part in holding me back. No matter
how many times I tell myself that I AM good enough, I struggle to completely believe
it. As yet, I have not found a way to shift this block in my thinking.
I know it is up to
me, and that I’m not powerless, but right now I’m struggling to figure out how
to move forward on this.
JOMO? I’ll aim for JO-maybe.