Navigating Past-Life FOMO

Differentiating between the life you want and the life you remember fondly

I’ve been to SXSW 14 times; I used to plan months in advance for it and was often corralled into going by close friends I wanted to see there. But this year it just didn’t make business sense to attend. And so I missed it. Earlier this month during the festival I saw on my social feeds the selfies with work friends, the "OMG! Look who I bumped into in the lounge of the JW Marriott” shots and felt genuine FOMO. 

There, I said it. 

But then I got over it.

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I gave shoutouts to my friends who did go, and then went about my weekend dropping kids at events, picking up around the house, reading articles I’d collected the week prior, kind of relieved.

This is a monumental shift for me. If there’s a mantra that has defined my work philosophy it would be, “just show up.” It has worked well for me throughout my career.

• When I graduated college a semester early with no real plan other than to move to New York City and couch surf until I found a job that paid enough to cover rent. It worked. 

• When I moved to San Francisco after having coffee with a founder in New York who convinced me to move west to help him and his co-founders. Three years later I was out of a job (it was post-9/11: Need I say more?) But in the aftermath I joined two women who were planning an event for fellow bloggers, and we built and exited the startup that resulted from that event. It worked. 

• And during those ten years, I traveled weekly to partner agencies, conferences, investor events, and customer off-sites, building critical relationships and awareness for my company. It worked.

I tied so much of my success to being there that I perhaps overdid it. One year, I flew to my company conference 8.5 months pregnant, against my doctor’s orders—I’d been there the past five years and wasn’t going to let the prospect of going into premature labor stop me! I researched hospitals and enlisted a very generous friend attending my conference, who was also an OB-GYN, to be on-call, just in case. 

I had a presentation at a client offsite located across the country, scheduled three days before my due date. My co-founders went in my stead, and I stayed home begrudgingly. Thank goodness I did—I gave birth a few hours before I would have met with the team. Still I called my co-founders with my two-hour-old baby in my arms to ask: How’d it go?

I flew to Tel Aviv for a one-hour speaking gig and came back to the US the same day, as I had to be back in the U.S. for investor meetings (To avoid having Israeli soldiers rifle through all of your belongings, including all your lady stuff, don’t do this without a sponsor letter). The visit, I can now admit, had NOTHING to do with moving my company’s business forward, but I had been asked and the newspaper holding the event was paying for the trip, and you never know who you might meet on the other side of the planet, so I went.

I traveled with a “sick bag” of cough syrup, Midol PMs, Benadryl, and Afrin, as I so commonly traveled while deliriously ill, not really thinking about whether the unfortunates I met with at these events might not have wanted to be having cocktails with Typhoid Mary. The thought of not going to an event because I wasn’t feeling well seemed like a cop out. Bailing for health reasons was not something one did if one wanted to accomplish anything substantial.

The point is: I held onto these instances of heroic attendance like badges of honor. It was all part of the sacrifice, I rationalized. Good things came to those who showed up.

But it was also FOMO gone awry — I was afraid of missing out on things that I, perhaps, if I’d had a stronger sense of who I was and what I wanted in life, would never have missed to begin with.

I started noticing that I didn’t enjoy about 80 percent of these “obligatory” trips after I had my daughters. Not right away of course — even then I made sure I worked my way back to top-tier airline mileage status; to have anything less meant I was spending far too much time at home. But while on planes I started planning for a different way of being, when I wouldn’t have to show up as much. I planned it out like one does a business plan, with a 3-5 year time horizon.

When COVID hit, I was initially panicked. Being grounded for six months was not part of the plan. And having to make contingency plans for all of the events my team was planning, the off-sites in London and Asia, felt wrong,  like I was making massive excuses for myself for wanting to stay healthy. I was scared for my family and the world, but also strangely relieved: At least we ALL were in the same boat. We ALL were missing out.

After the crux of the Pandemic, as people started venturing back into the office and onto planes, something in me changed, as though a filter was inserted into my brain, and it caught all the pointless, time-wasting, deceptively obligatory pieces of lint and let easy, fun things sail right through.

• Virtual speaking gig at a global event that will require you to wake up at 3am to attend? Mmmm nope.

• VIP invitation to meet with your C-level peers and discuss the state of the industry at a top-tier restaurant, offered by someone who would then email me incessantly? Maybe next time.

• Fancy schmancy event with thought leaders in London that would require me to cancel plans with family and re-subscribe to Rent the Runway to fit in? Hard no.

• Meet another mom for a drink in town in-between drop off and pick up at Girl Scouts? Totally!

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Caregiving: The Silent Energy Drain: Members, please join us for our next member webinar on Thursday March 28, 2024; 12PM PT / 3PM ET.

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Lest you think I’m a total shut-in for anything other than drinks during girl scout meetings I will tell you I am back in the world meeting clients, contacts, old and new peers, but I’m back differently. I still struggle with needing to show up, over-performing, re-proving myself, apologizing for having other commitments. Fortunately I have a supportive community of friends, who remind me I am a grown-ass woman with her own priorities, and of my commitment to un-stick myself. 

This weekend I met up with a group of women I meet with several times a year to inspire and help each other in our careers. It was a perfect day of learning, thinking, and fun. We even learned a TikTok dance! And at the end of it, between drinks and dinner, I realized I was tired. 

Apologizing to this group of women I loved spending time with, I told them I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. I would be missing out on an evening of storytelling, meaningful conversation and ridiculous selfies, to be sure, and quite possibly the next mind-blowing, life-altering idea mentioned casually at first, but that would start to grow in my brain like a Chia Pet by the end of the weekend.

One of my friends responded: Do what you feel.

In the past, I haven’t been sure about how I felt, or why I showed up. But this time I felt my time had been well spent. I felt satisfied. I felt done. 

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