It’s a Saturday night. All your friends are making plans and for once you aren’t sure if you want to go out. You went out last night and you are already dreading the week ahead and its heavy workload. You could really use the night in because we all know; a day after a night out is always unproductive- no matter how hard you try.
But, do you really want to sit at home while all your friends are out having fun? Do you really want to be the only one who doesn’t understand the conversation at tomorrow’s dinner? However, on the other hand, do you want to skip some relaxing time to go out with friends and realize you don’t really have plans? Do you want to put more stress on yourself just to go out one more night? You’ve probably thought about this and if you haven’t, you probably will. This phenomenon is known as FOMO or the fear of missing out. We’ve all been there and we’ll probably all be there again.
You always know when there is a big event soon in the future. People talk about it at the dining halls, on the way to classes, post it on Snapchat, and by receiving notifications from Facebook that you didn’t even realize you signed up to receive. Because you hear about it so much, your mind is automatically made up for you. You have to go because if everyone goes, you will be the only one who doesn’t go and you will never understand what it was like to be there. Yes, you can see Snapchats, watch videos, and read Yaks, but second-hand experience is definitely not as good as first hand experience.
Even as a freshman, I know the Beanpot is a big deal and I was really looking forward to watching our Eagles demolish BU. Getting the email that I could purchase tickets heightened the excitement. My friends and I planned to go to the ticket booth together so we would all be sitting with each other. Thank god I read the email one more time (wouldn’t want to make the long walk to Lower for no reason) and noticed that the game was on a Monday night. Or what I call, the most dreadful three hours of my week and what others may call… Chem Lab. Ok, Ok, I had faith in our team and knew that we would qualify for the finals, but of course, the finals were a week from the first game and again during my Chem slot. Now, I could say that I easily got over it and convinced myself that I had another 3 years to make it to the games, but I didn’t. I only had to unsuccessfully search and switch into a different lab period, briefly consider dropping the subject completely and complain to my friends about all the FOMO I had. But now, it is Monday night, and instead of going to the game, I got to do a qualitative analysis of cations. But hey, at least I didn’t need to stay the entire three hours…I’m just trying to be positive.
To be honest, in the beginning of the year, I went out every time I was asked. I would go anywhere, do anything just because I didn’t want to miss out. But truthfully, there are only so many times you can go “out” to another double room, where there are far too many people than the room’s maximum capacity. Now, I am much better at choosing my priorities. I know that if I go somewhere, I will be having fun with my friends and if I choose to stay in, I will (hopefully) be productive and lighten my workload for the following day.
So if you need to turn down an off campus party for a relaxing night in, do not be afraid to say no. There will be plenty of other weekends to go out and you probably won’t even miss out on that much. What I couldn’t do in the beginning of the year, I can now choose if I want to go because I want to go out or because everyone else wants to go out.
Note: I wrote this article to convince myself that I will be okay when all my friends are having fun at a concert while I am doing an experiment in lab…. again.
Photo Sources
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