As we reluctantly get serious about our careers in college, we notice a complete 180-degree turn during our summers. Summers in high school hold some of my dearest memories: being out on the lake, partying, bonfires, cabins, road trips, and more partying.
These are the activities I find myself daydreaming about only two summers later while I sit in the office of my internship scrolling through Instagram and aching inside at the sight of some of my friends continuing our rambunctious ways without me.
That ache has a name: “FOMO" (fear of missing out). Typically I'm strongly opposed to the hip vernacular that is defecating daily on the English language (words like bae and darty), but this one hits the nail on the head
The friends from home are hanging out every day and doing the things we once did together. The significant other finds herself partying on weeknights and I get to wake up to her snapchats early the next morning. The fraternity brothers from school are doing a painless summer semester and never even had to leave campus or the parties behind.
Meanwhile, every morning I wake up at 7 a.m., shower, shave, put on a shirt and tie, have a bowl of cereal, grab my leather portfolio and my company-stamped coffee thermos, and leave my apartment for work. I'm a few weeks in and it still feels like I'm playing house by myself. I sit in more and more meetings, but every day I feel more and more disconnected.
Imagine, if you will, sitting in an empty room with two windows. The window on your right shows the start of the life you're heading toward; a secure job in the industry you have spent hours studying for and are slowly falling in love with (hopefully). The window on your left shows the life you're soon to leave; one of cold drinks, sun, music, friends and the beautiful reckless hybrid of college and summer.
That first window is your internship and the second is the bottomless social media you find yourself lost in, sending sharp stabs of FOMO into your gut. There you are on a weekday afternoon, looking through each window in some sort of cruel purgatory.
The weight of the FOMO builds on your shoulders and chest and the force of habit is making you stare out of that left window at all of the Instagram posts, Snapchat stories, and tweets about your friends' lives – the life you never wanted to leave behind in the first place. Maybe you're starting to think there is no FOMO cure. Oh, but there is.
The FOMO cure is a simple one, but before I go into it, it's important to cover what FOMO actually is.
FOMO and jealousy are synonymous, each with identical mental and physical effects. Jealousy is the old childish nemesis we have known for a very long time, known to destroy relationships, bank accounts, body images, virtually anything we let its harsh effects disturb.
Jealousy doesn't even have to be rational, in fact it rarely is. That irrationality can make you regret your intelligent life decision to spend your summer getting useful job experience rather than doing the same thing you've done for the last two decades. It's time to acknowledge the difference of the two windows I mentioned earlier.
The one on your right, looking forward at your career, is spotless. What you're looking at is an entry-level experience from which the only place to go is up. Nothing is sugar coated, there are no filters, it's real.
The left window looking back at your old life is skewed. The photos are staged, edited, and probably took multiple takes. You're looking at the staged highlights and rarely an actual glimpse into your friends' daily lives. The photo showing the back of four girls jumping off a dock holding hands with a cliché summer caption probably took a few takes and even more passive-aggressive comments, on top of extensive filtering and editing. The twenty snapchat stories of some mediocre concert is a clear indication that your friend probably watched the whole thing through his or her camera phone too. How exciting.
Do not fall into the trap of social media this summer. The cure for FOMO is to take pride in what you're doing. Learn not just about your industry, but about yourself too. When you begin to realize that you're not just working for a paycheck and that you're actually adding value to yourself, the feeling of FOMO is vanquished.
Make time every day for your hobbies. Make time to work out. Make time to talk to relatives. Maybe this summer won't be as rowdy, but it can definitely be more meaningful. Instead of drowning in boredom and wishing you had a different summer, get to know yourself. Eventually, you'll realize you can do without most of what you thought you were missing out on.
