I am the queen of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I want to be invited everywhere with all my friends all the time. I always refuse to miss a night/day out with my buds. I will go out even if I should be doing homework. I will go out even if I’m not in the mood. The only thing that has stopped me before is a physical illness.
So when a friend of mine told me that she didn’t want to go abroad because she was afraid of all the exciting social events she would miss, I understood. I chose to go abroad to India and after six weeks in, I have to say, I do not understand anymore. I do not fear missing out on the all-nighters (both for school and recreation), monotonous homework assignments, dining hall food, or random drama. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my school friends. I love my on-campus jobs, clubs, and communities. I love my campus in general.
But the fact that I am here, abroad, counteracts all those aspects. Campus life will be there for me when I get back; I still have a couple semesters of that. This is here, now, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Every day is a new adventure. Today, I found a grocery store, bought a bunch of ingredients, and successfully made banana bread for my host family. In the States, this would be a seemingly simple task. In a new country, not so much. I had to ask people directions to the store. I had to ask one of the workers at this slightly questionable market for every single item (there was no way I was going to find it in the mountains of miscellaneous things laying around). The labels were also all in a different language! Chocolate chips apparently have to be weighed and measured before purchased.
Then, making the bread was a whole new journey. It involved a lot of guessing, conversion from cups to grams and Fahrenheit to Celsius, and the using of a toaster oven. But the conclusion was that I did it. Each day, there is a new challenge that requires my patience and open mind. It requires a ton of active listening and brain power. It’s exhausting in the best possible way. At college, there can be days when I do not use my brain actively at all. I go to class, I take a nap, I go to the dining hall, I do homework, I laugh with friends. It’s comforting. It’s almost easy. It’s the same thing week in, week out with minor changes.
Here, I see new faces every day. I get overwhelmed by the new sounds and smells. I get jittery when I cross the streets successfully. I get excited when I see my new friends’ faces. I have never learned so quickly in such mass quantities in my life. I am not only learning in my classes. I learn on the walks home from school: the fact that the guards in front of the Chief Minister’s house read the newspaper all day while on duty, the fact that oranges can be green and still ripe, the fact that men really like to stare at women. I learn during adventures with friends on the weekends: the fact that peacocks roam the streets when they are wild, the fact that being white gives me more privilege than my wildest imagination could construe, the fact that colonialism still plays such a substantial role in the world. I learn from my host family. My life here is so filled with rich information, cultural differences, and incredible wisdom that can only be obtained through physical presence.
I do not have FOMO, because life is too dang interesting here to even acknowledge my fear. I miss my friends oodles, but they will always be there for me. Studying abroad will not. It is a privilege that should not be taken lightly nor underappreciated.