Have you heard of FOMO? It stands for “fear of missing out.” Young people use it today, often apologetically, to explain why they stayed up, though exhausted, to watch a movie with friends; why they went on a camping trip when they hate camping; why they cannot give up social media for Lent.
I began examining “fear of missing out.” Missing out on what? If I go to bed, I do miss out on the movie, but if I watch the movie, I miss out on rest! If I go on the camping trip, I miss out on home time. And if I stay on social media, I miss out on asceticism and prayer opportunities.
It is important to miss out on the right things. Miss out on friend time if your body is begging for sleep and will be unable to fulfill tomorrow’s duties without it. Miss out on great campground memories if you know you should take the car in for an inspection. Miss out on what is trending in the virtual world to spend time with Jesus in the real world.
By embracing distractions, many of us miss out on our own rich interior world. Each baptized person is a Temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in our daily life and wants time with us alone—without our phones and the many truly good things they offer.
When alone, we need never be lonely. There is a difference between solitude and loneliness. Our Guardian Angel is always with us, and so is the “great cloud of witnesses,” the saints. The angels probably chuckle ruefully at our phrase “fear of missing out,” because it often covers for behavior that is itself the ultimate “missing out”: missing out on dialogue with the indwelling Trinity.
A Sister recently joked she didn’t want to leave our Saturday evening bonfire to retrieve snacks from the kitchen: “FOMO!” she called as she stepped inside. “Don’t say anything fun without me!” But alone in the kitchen, who knows the words of intimacy she could exchange with her Spouse.
Pascal said, “All humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Pascal lived in the 1600s! Distaste for, and fear of, silence and solitude, prerequisites for intimacy with God, are as old as the hills. We need to will a little daily silence and solitude back into our lives. Paul VI offered consecrated men and women counsel fitting for all: “If you have lost the taste for prayer, you will regain the desire for it by returning humbly to its practice.”
During this month of November, let us turn to the saints and the Holy Souls in Purgatory, the immense invisible world of those living outside time, to help us summon courage to miss out on what we should miss out on, so as not to miss out on what really matters—the one thing necessary, our Beloved, who stands at the door and knocks.
