Fighting FOMO

Black Friday brought a bevy of fantastic sales on things I had at some point in the year thought of purchasing and now was ever so tempted to give in or forever miss out on these items' promises to finally make my life complete and at a special bargain price.  I so wish that buying stuff actually delivered on the promises they make, that feeling content and complete is just one purchase away.  I was fighting FOMO hard during the kick-off to holiday spending.  The Fear Of Missing Out is a normal human instinct and one that has driven mankind to pursue their goals, reach higher, go the distance, etc., etc throughout history. On the grand scale, life is a temporary condition and it can quite literally pass us by if we don't get the fear in us to make the most of it.  But, like all things there has to be some balance to it.  At some point, it's time to let a few things pass us by as we sit back and enjoy life a bit too.  The pursuit, the fear, can become addictive and all consuming.  The simple fact is, you gotta let a few go, opportunities and amazing sales alike.  That's become more difficult than ever in this age of constant advertisements of the life you could be leading if you only bought X.    

Growing up, I believed I was born into the wrong style era and suffered the emotional consequences, because I was too young to understand that there was nothing wrong with my body, and everything wrong with the trend of clothes I was trying to fit into.  As a result, if I did come across something that actually fit or even better, actually looked good on me, I would stock up so I could have nice clothing until I could find more on some far distant day.  Scarcity mindset got a hold of me pretty early on in life. 

Over the years my body changed and styles changed too.  There are now so many options for sizes, styles, and fits that I don't really have to buy in bulk when I find something that works because there are so many options.  I have a plethora of perfect-for-me pieces of clothing and yet I find myself still constantly searching.  What started out as a survival mechanism turned to a habit and an obsession.  It was only a few years ago that I realized that I spent most of my time searching for and acquiring more, but rarely ever stopping to enjoy what I already had.   It's been a stressful year and even thrifting has been a crutch I've leaned on way too much.

I've had mixed success with spending freezes and the low buy year hasn't been a total triumph but it hasn't been a total failure either.  I've managed to stick to thrifting everything except a few Black Friday purchases and even then walked away from about 70% of what I wanted to buy.  In light of all that, I've decided to just keep at it until this gets easier and I get better at it.  I really want to just take a break from shopping, wanting, searching, obsessing, from FOMO, from all of it.  I want to spend some time just appreciating what I have.  And I have realized that if I really want to be successful at it, I have to get off the internet.  With the holidays coming, I can't just stop spending altogether, but I can stop for a few days out of each week and make a plan to shut it down for a while in the new year.  That may mean pausing the blog for a while too, but I think it will be worth it if I can see it through.