FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is a cultural buzzword of the day. Our society is plagued with people who feel like they are on the outside looking in. With everyone posting highlight reels of their best moments on social media, there are many who are becoming unnecessarily discouraged as they compare their real, everyday lives with the glorified highlights of others.

FOMO can cause people to make rash decisions in their quest to live like the Joneses. Coveting what they see in others’ lives leads them to run after things they were never meant to have. It can also cause them to stop dead in their tracks, caught in the trap of comparison, leaving them with feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. In either case, FOMO is an anxiety-inducing stressor which leads to poor decision making. 

Rather than suffering from FOMO, people need to be guided by what I call “FIFO”: Faith In Future Opportunities. You activate self-discipline when you believe there is something better in the future than what you are experiencing in the present. People with a strong sense of FIFO will pay now in order to play later. They see the future with optimism and hope. This helps them to deny their desire for instant gratification in favor of future greatness. French poet Victor Hugo said, “The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.”

Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, Walter Mischel conducted testing at Stanford University which became known as the Marshmallow Test. Children were put in a room by themselves with one single marshmallow. They were told they could choose to either eat the marshmallow immediately or wait for an extended amount of time and receive more marshmallows. Only three out of ten children could resist the urge to eat the marshmallow instantly. What’s fascinating are the findings that came 30 years after the study was completed, when further research was conducted on these same test subjects (now adults). 

They discovered that the “Delayers” were predominately more successful in life overall. The “Non-Delayers” were 30% more likely to be overweight, suffer from drug addictions, and have a record of criminal activity. Psychologists call this phenomenon Hyperbolic Discount: the farther away a reward is in the future, the less motivation there is to achieve it. But when your FIFO is greater than your FOMO, you are motivated to endure even through insurmountable odds. Something invigorating happens to us when we live with expectancy and patience for the future. When we have a sense of hope for the future, there is a surge of power in the present. Those whose FIFO is greater than their FOMO will increase their level of discipline now to become more successful down the road.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NIV)

17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.