“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde
I wish I could offer the reassurance that missing out on experiences would be fine, but I wouldn’t be expressing the truth of my thoughts. I believe that there are many chances we could take to continue learning and growing as people which are available to us right under our noses. People miss out on a lot of possibilities due to anxiety and self-doubt, even though self-rejection isn’t worth risking a set of new encounters. In truth, there’s no time to let impostor syndrome win, or to worry about what people think. There certainly isn’t time to procrastinate making life changing choices due to fear of what’s ahead.
There’s a point that approaches where you’ve just had enough of this nonsense from your mind, where it tries to trick you into staying away from new experiences, delaying your process of possible self-development. The reality is that you won’t lose much from trying something new, but you will lose the opportunity you didn’t take. Gaining this insight can be genuinely helpful because why are we all afraid to take chances that could be life changing? This feels like common sense, but messages on the internet that encourage people to live their life won’t be enough if those beliefs aren’t implemented into the subconscious. Hence, you should start practicing taking risks and accepting the fear of embarrassment and failure, which are two things that are unavoidable in the lifespan of a human being. Besides, the greatest sense of failure would come from never having taken the step that was necessary for growth.
We begin life with tons of visions, but a lot of people are eventually struck with reality and start to lose their spark. Many parents and grandparents have given up on their dreams but continue to motivate the newer generation, seeing their younger ambitious selves in them. Is there a way to find a way to keep this almost delusional ambition we have in our youth? I sure hope to find a way to keep mine because it seems to be one of the secrets to living a fulfilling life, where the confidence in your hope eventually guides you to each “impossible” wish or allows you to become wiser from your mistakes, which will likely occur.
If I’m being honest, I don’t want to miss important experiences and I wouldn’t want to go around telling people that it’s okay to miss opportunities that they could’ve taken. This will do nothing but encourage people to stay in their comfort zone. I understand that people attempt to beat FOMO by reassuring themselves that it’s okay to miss experiences, which of course is valid, depending on the context. However, if there’s one feeling worse than anxiety, it’s regret. Instead of staying safe and comfortable, the trick is to desensitize yourself to your fears. It can take many years to improve an aspect of ourselves, whether it be a skill or the strengthening of our personality characteristics. These all require openness to knowledge and new encounters. There are so many things to do and to try, but not enough time! How can we live countless experiences in one life? I imagine we can hope to fit as many as we can and create a long but rewarding journey for ourselves. There really isn’t another way to accomplish this than putting effort into your growth and taking opportunities as they arrive or working hard to create new possibilities for yourself.
I personally don’t want to wake up years later and find that I’m still the same person or to look back on a lifetime of self-rejected potential. So, I vow to stop letting anxiety control me and I suggest you do the same, for the sake of your future self. I don’t believe that it’s for our best interest if we choose to ignore an opportunity for growth that’s directly accessible to us and I’m over doing exactly that. It’s time to start living many lives in one life!