YOLO = You only live once
FOMO = Fear of missing out
Both trendy acronyms (perhaps well past their prime at this point), refer to different parts of the human psyche. The aspirational parts of not letting fear hold you back and of wanting to belong with others (in this case through shared activity).
Often used as justifications for spur of the moment decisions and many times illogical ones, these acronyms embody an underlying objective of what many people pursue as their ultimate goal:
“My goal in life is to be happy.”
I’ve encountered many discussions with friends and colleagues who say this, and they aren’t alone, it’s an age old ideology referred to as “hedonism.”
Are you part of this group? Do you use YOLO and FOMO as parameters to do things? Do you feel your goal in life is to be happy and that’s what you pursue?
If so, I’d argue that you are probably pursuing happiness incorrectly. Let me explain.
Happiness is an ambiguously defined state of mind. Science can help try and parse what happiness is. For example it seems to be highly correlated to the presence of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin in the brain. So it’s the presence of chemicals. You’re in pursuit of chemicals.
Is that really what you’re after?
Raves and EDM Concerts leverage that pretty effectively (often with the help of a few additional substances), even the most successful apps leverage these reactions in the brain to keep you addicted to using them. You keep pursuing more and more activities and options to “bring you happiness.”
The problem is that we normalize these elevated states, a phenomenon referred to as the hedonic treadmill (if it’s got a fancy name to it, it must be a real thing…just kidding, make up your own mind and get to the conclusion yourself).
The parallel to this in the professional setting is “when I just make partner or close this client or finish this project, I’ll be happy.” The problem is that happiness, being a state of mind (chemically induced), can only occur in your body in the present moment. You can only “be happy” in the present. Therefore all this time between now (which you’re unhappy) and achieving the goal renders happiness unobtainable. Do you really want to create a system in which you have no possibility of winning–of being happy–for a long time?
Couple that with the fact that once that goal is attained you’ll normalize it. The joy lasts a few moments, days, weeks, but then what? Okay you made partner, does that mean you’re constantly happy? Are partners constantly happy? So what makes you think you will be different? Pursuing happiness is an endless treadmill in which you are always in search of the next thing that you think would make you happy. Once you hit it, you realize life doesn’t magically become better.
Happiness is relative and situational dependent. You have access to fresh water and food, how many people on this earth would be happy to have that? If someone cuts you off in traffic, you can go from being happy to angry just like that. Would you be happy being on a tropical vacation and not at work (in this cold winter)? Yes, you’d probably ecstatic (I know I would). But what if on the way to your tropical destination the flight got delayed? Boom, unhappy.
Happiness is based on what you focus on, and what you focus on can be affected by so many different things like an email you just received, an app notification, your commute time, digestion, etc. Do you really want to have your life’s guiding framework be so reactive and contingent on your surroundings?
Another thing to consider is that happiness is not as valued without experiencing its opposites like sadness, struggling, and hardships. The degree with which you can appreciate happiness is dependent on how low you’ve been in life. (I’m going to simplify this on a scale system, excuse the oversimplification in favor of clarity.)
If your life’s goal is to be happy, then that implies there’s an ultimate state of happiness that can be accomplished and obtained, let’s call that 10 out of 10 happiness. A person constantly pursuing happiness is on average probably at a steady 7 out of 10. You’ve guided your life to favor happiness and you’re above average because of this, congrats.
You’re all about maximizing YOLO.
But, that steady state of 7 begins to normalize in you. It’s what you have now and soon that doesn’t mean as much as it did before. You need more and the most you can get is 3 more points of happiness (from 7 to 10). That gross positive delta (aggregation of positive change) is what you’re seeking, for that is what releases the chemicals (positive change). You’ll have everything that makes you happy, but you won’t feel it as much.
Compare that to someone who doesn’t pursue happiness as the guiding framework to pursue life. This person’s happiness can fluctuate from 0 to 10 without any normalization because his/her life is constantly changing. He or she can perpetually go from a 2 up to a 7 (+5) down to a 3 to a 6 (+3), etc. etc. This person has the gross positive delta opportunity of near infinity.
But Clifton, you’re ignoring the negatives here.
Exactly! If the goal of life is to obtain maximum happiness, in order to do so and account for the fact that we normalize our happiness, you have to actually go down on the scale to readjust your normalized state–you have to embrace sadness, frustration, setbacks. But with a pure “pursue happiness” approach, you’ll never go down because:
You’re all about minimizing FOMO.
And that combination of maximizing YOLO and minimizing FOMO is not going to get you to where you want to go: of being as happy as you can be, of optimizing your brains reaction to these chemicals.
To actually maximize happiness in the long term, you need to make decisions that in the short run actually don’t make you happy. You know what that sounds like?
Delayed Gratification
In a business context, this means taking on things that may seem dull or challenging in the short run, but the experience will improve your skills and abilities so much that it helps launch you forward. You might have to drop down to a 2 or 3 in happiness to bounce back to a 6 or 7. You might have to endure the 100+ hour work weeks in consulting to learn the skills required to run your own company later on. You might have to do the repetitive task of tying out a financial statement to really learn how financials work to be a successful investor later on. You know what these situations sound like?
Growth Opportunities
You are challenged, faced with many undesirable things to do, all of which drop you down a few notches on the happiness scale, but then when you learn them and they launch you to the place you want to go, you bounce back and experience a lot of happiness chemicals. But, if you’re always about seeking happiness, you’ll choose the easy way out and won’t put yourself in a low state to bounce back from.
So don’t choose to minimize FOMO pursue NOGO 1.
NOGO 1: Now Optimizing Growth Opportunities
Constantly seek out these opportunities to grow, for delayed gratification, and to ensure that you don’t normalize at such a high state of happiness that you can’t experience an increase in happiness very easily.
Some simple things are to sleep on the floor for a night once a quarter…you’ll be happy to have your bed the next night. Go backpacking for a weekend, you’ll appreciate running water and toilets. Volunteer your time with those less fortunate. Take on that difficult client or boring task at work.
That all sounds great, but what happens when you are in those lower states? We will be miserable in those moments we do those non-joyous things, and that’s exactly where we started.
Yes, exactly.
This thought experiment brings you to the conclusion that the optimization for happiness by focusing on things that will make you happy is an incomplete framework.
In order to optimize happiness, you should learn to find and appreciate in the present moment that which you have and accept that which you don’t have, aka practice gratitude as you embrace these growth opportunities.
Train your mind and consciousness to focus on things that make you happy in the present moment regardless of what else is going on around you. It is as though you have a cheat code to always obtain happiness. So while you’re pursuing NOGO 1, seek NOGO 2.
NOGO 2: Now Optimizing Gratitude Observations
See for yourself if becoming present and seeking gratitude will optimize your life for happiness as you pursue growth opportunities, especially during the times that you re-normalize your happiness. Live a life of NOGO 1 & 2 rather than YOLO and FOMO. And as an added bonus, try this:
Instead of adding new things, experiences, and goals in your life that you hope will make you happy, focus on removing things that make you unhappy.
See if removing frustrations in life actually yields more sustainable happiness for you than adding new things that make you happy. It works for Mr. Money Mustache, it might work for you. It’s a great starting point for those needing tangible baby steps…and we all need those, so give it a try.