FOMO
Questioner: Sir, my name is Vibhor, and for the past year, I've been working as a software engineer in Bengaluru. My question is: what have we been taught — to run after something in this past phase of life? And what I feel is full of FOMO and distraction, due to which I find myself lost and distracted. So I wanted to ask — how can I align my career and ambition with inner satisfaction and contentment?
Acharya Prashant: You said FOMO?
Questioner: Yes sir.
Acharya Prashant: We are all indeed missing out. But do we realize what we are missing out on?
It's like one's house is on fire, that's the reason there's nothing on the TV, because the entire house is ablaze, and he feels that he is missing out on the cricket match, a huge FOMO; the phone is luckier—it happens to have an internal battery—so he says, you know, everybody is right there, some of them are there in the stadium itself, others are enjoying the live stream, I'm the only unfortunate one missing out, missing out—on the cricket match, and the house is on fire.
Do we realize what we are missing out on?
The fellow is not lying. He is actually missing out on the cricket match. But there is something called perspective. Perspective, no?
So there's the railway platform. You have paid for the tea, and you're waiting for him to deliver. He says, five minutes more sir. The tea and the other stuff you ordered is getting ready. And from the corner of one eye, you can see the train beginning to crawl away. And you insist, you are missing out on the meals.
Yes, you are missing out. But on what?
And not that one is lying. Yes, if one rushes to board the train, one would, yes, miss out on the meal, the tea, and the stuff.
When I know, 'Who I am,' then I know what is important for me. Knowing oneself does not mean knowing anything beyond one's misery.
Please know this. Because when you say when you know yourself, you'll realize that you're Suddha Buddha Atma. You look within, there's nothing great you are going to observe. And that's not bad news, because if you can observe all the rubbish within, the observation itself cleans things up. Greatness does not have to be imported or cultivated. If the inner rubbish can be cleaned up, you realize that's all. You don't need an additional thing called greatness. All you need is liberation from falseness — the process is of negation, reduction, rejection. Reject what is not needed, reject what your need is there.
Behind all FOMO is the fear of missing out on what life has the potential to deliver to each of us. But since we don't know ourselves fully enough; so we don't read the message, we don't read our insides. So there is a general kind of anxiety with no specific object whatsoever. A general kind of objectless anxiety — Kuch to gadbad hai — I'm missing out on something. What exactly is that thing? I don't know of. And I'll never admit that I don't know what I'm missing out on. So I start pretending that I'm missing out on that particular, specific thing.
That the assertion is hollow is proven to us every day, every night. Because what you claim to be the object of your desire is not something that always remains unachievable. Today, as we stand here in this century, economically, technologically, we are more empowered than human beings ever have been. So many objects of our desire that we very easily obtain today were things that were unavailable even to kings just a few centuries back. Don't we succeed in getting the things that we desire many times? Don't we? And that proportion is only increasing.
But does the hollowness go away? What does that prove? That which you thought of as the thing that you are missing was not the thing that you were missing. You are missing something else. But we don't want to admit what we are really missing. So you say, 'I'm missing new curtains in the house. The car is missing a new pair of wheels. I'm desperately missing a salary hike.' And if there is nobody else to paste the missing status on, then you pick up your phone and some random number from the contacts list and say, 'I'm missing you.'
Sometimes you don't even clearly remember the name of the person you dialed – Bas yaar tujhe miss kar raha tha. The fellow might happen to be the cop who arrested you once.
Yes, we are missing something; let's identify what we are really missing. And the process is of negation.
You will never come to know the real thing that needs to be and yet is not—that in some way actually is and yet is not. You'll never come to know of that thing if you keep convincing yourself of false objects of desire — I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this.
And your time is limited, your energy is limited. If you rush after all these objects — 70, 80, 90 years—the blink of an eye. Thankfully, the thing that we are really missing is not a thing at all. It is just to relieve yourself of the things that you're not missing.
You see, I stand here. And somehow that's called Jātamaya — Maya that occupies you just by the fact, the incident of your birth. You don't have to do anything to be in its grip, because you are born. So it will be there. So, you take birth and you say, "I'm missing this, I'm missing that, I'm missing that." The baby is always reaching out — "Where is the mother?" And the temperature is not good. Am I all lonely here? Is the stuff beneath me a little wet? No, things are not right. And then that continues as you grow. You're educated — "This is to be obtained, that is to be obtained, that is to be obtained."
You are missing freedom from that which you do not need but still desire. That's what we are missing out on. We are missing out on freedom from that which is not needed but is still desired. And if that freedom can be there, then you do not require anything else.
I do not mean to say that we are rushing after small things while we are missing out on something immense, no. That too would be misleading imagery. A human being rushing after toys and this and that — "Let me bring some spices to the kitchen, let me watch that new movie, let me plan that fancy vacation." That's a tone usually in spirituality — "You are rushing after all these worldly, mortal, carnal things and you are missing out on Bhagwaan."
It's not that you are rushing after small things and missing out on something vast, immense — no. That too is a thing of your desire, that too is a thing of your imagination, that too is a thing of your lack of consciousness. Immensity, that you can think of, is a very petty thing. No? If I can call something as immense — a little jaggery, this big a lump — and for the ant, it is immense. That's how petty we are. And so, anything that we call as immense is bound to be something very small.
Don't think that there's a great immensity, some great power beyond Brahmand — and you are missing out on that, and your heart is yearning for one little glimpse of that Virat Roop. Nice stories, but useless. They won't help your life. And your business, your concern, is your life — not stories. No, we have to bring Adhyatma to where we are, because that's our concern.
When there are these things that we hold as important, as dear — sometimes as sacred — then we must ask ourselves: from where does this value come? How do I know that this thing is valuable? Or how do I know that that thing is sacred? How do I know?
One of the contributing to the steep downfall of pop spirituality has been the total absence of epistemology — simply put, the question: "How do I know?"
When you say, "But that is important," the question must be, "How do I know that?" That which you are calling as important has not always been called important. In fact, today you are calling it important; you weren’t finding the same thing equally important ten years back. What's taken as important in one culture, one country, at one time, isn't taken as important or valuable or sacred in another culture, another country, another era.
How do you know something really is?
Then, all desires are based on assumptions — because all desires involve an object. You will desire the object only when, first of all, you assume that the object has some value. We never know that the object has value. We attribute a value. We project a value. The label, the price tag, comes from us. We go and put it on the object, and then we say, "My God, such a valuable object!"
Just that we are unconscious when we are attributing that value. Or we do not realize that somebody put that tag on that object, and we never questioned: how is that object really so valuable?
And in the field of religion — how is that object sacred? What is the definition of sacredness? Kindly convince me that the thing, or whatever method or this or that, is sacred. Sacredness is not so cheap.
Sacredness is something that you have to discover in your own heart, through your own inquiry, through your own life — and then you come to that which can be called sacred.
It's not that, "You know, that particular place is sacred, that particular stone is sacred, that particular direction is sacred. Pray facing that direction." What is this?
Am I clarifying or complicating? I'm not sure. I never am.
You're talking about missing out — fear of missing out. Missing out on what? On something, right? You already know that something, at least you have some idea somewhere.
Ask yourself: how do I know that this thing is worth pursuing? How do I know?
Don't attribute or leave it to common sense — "Well, everybody pursues it, it's commonsensical, isn't it obvious? Everybody goes after it, so this thing must be valuable." We won't take such answers. We want honest, independent, individual inquiries: how do I know that this institution, this action, this belief, this or that — this whatever — this is indeed something I cannot do without?
And in that, facts come handy. In fact, the emergence of, first of all, search engines and now AI bots that converse with us — they are a blessing, because you can know the facts. And when there are facts, then imaginations are dispelled.
Why are we so much against imaginations?
Because we are suffering. And to us, at least, the suffering is real. And that which is real — at least for us — cannot be healed with imaginations. You go to a doctor, you say, "You know, I'm really suffering. There's a kidney stone." And he says, "Imagine there is no stone." Will that help?
We need to know facts.
