The Perfect Metaphor for FOMO
FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. A known insecurity among people who don’t fit in much. The metaphor goes:
You are in a train with your friends. It is not a regular local train, it is an out station train. All of you have baggage.
You got along well throughout the journey: laughing together, sharing stories, working together, and creating more stories.
All of a sudden, the train pulls up into a station. It is your station. There is a bit of hurrying, and you seem to be the last one to go. You also seem to have heavy baggage.
It’s okay, no worries. You’ll get there. You’ll make it. You battle your luggage and head for the door in full speed. Only, there’s a large Indian family blocking the doorway as you start to see the train move forward from the brown-tinted windows.
Panic and despair have turned from a small spark into an inferno inside you.
There are a number of things that can happen now:
One. The train stops moving all of a sudden. You do end up having the time to get off. You see your friends with joy and relief. Hurrah.
Two. With panic, you pull the chain. The train stops. You get off. Then you spend a while discussing why you did what you did because crippling anxiety is not a reason to pardon a huge fine.
Three. You run to the other side, where there is another door. The train is still pulling out very slowly, so you can hurry off without major damage.
In any of these cases, you never feel the relief of your feet hitting solid ground, the relief of waving to your friends, having them walk up to you and meet you, and ultimately, the relief of walking happily into the sunset together.
The epiphany is that unless you feel the feeling of being on solid ground, you will never be secure. Either that or you’re already on the ground but you don’t know how to truly believe it.
In any case, the ground is security - something you’re not currently feeling.
Soon after this, you wake up, because this is an early morning nightmare and you are probably just overthinking again.
(This is reposted from my personal blog, from something I wrote over 3 years ago)