How FOMO Caused Me to Miss Out

By Mike Glenn

I grew up at the beginning of the visual age. Televisions were just beginning to move to the center of the family room, replacing fireplaces that once called the family together. Now, television shows galvanized the family’s attention. I got to watch some classics! The Jackie Gleason Show, The Magical World of Disney, The Rifleman, M*A*S*H, The Johnny Carson Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and, best of all – Saturday Night Live (when it was must-watch TV). These are the moments that defined my childhood and adolescent years. 

Remember, these were the days before video recording and streaming. If you missed a program, you missed the program. If you missed the program, the best that you could do was hope you could catch it during summer reruns. 

And you didn’t want to miss any program because it would be what all your friends would talk about the next day. Everyone would ask, “Did you see that last night?” “Did you see that pass?” “Did you hear what Belushi said last night? (That's John Belushi of SNL.) 

And if you didn’t see it, you wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone about what was going on. You would become a social outcast for at least a week. This was my first experience with FOMO.

FOMO means “Fear of Missing Out." Since our world has been sliced up into conversations of 140 characters and video clips of two minutes or less, we’ve become paranoid about missing out on the latest trends or viral sensations. Because we’re scared of missing out, we’re constantly scrolling across multiple social media platforms so that we’ll be aware of the next sensation.

All of this scrolling takes a lot of time and attention. Friends drift off in conversations, children ignore their parents, and parents can’t hear their children. Employees drop out of meetings and spouses find themselves in different worlds - all because we’re glued to our screens. All of us think FOMO is a new thing. It’s not. It’s been around for a long time. We just didn’t know what to call it. 

FOMO came up in a recent conversation. Now that I’ve announced my retirement, people have asked me what worked during my ministry and what didn’t. What would I do again and what do I regret ever doing in the first place? 

In this particular conversation, I think my answer surprised them. I know it surprised me. I’m angry that I wasted so much time watching TV.  Sure, I was able to be part of conversations with my friends and saw some once-in-a-lifetime moments like astronauts landing on the moon and Hank Aaron’s record-breaking home run, but I also saw a lot of things that didn't matter. They didn’t matter then. They don’t matter now. 

I’ve known some great saints in my life. I have loved my conversations with them. Knowing them has changed my life. 

And you know what? Most of them didn’t have a television. When I walked into their home and asked where the TV was, they would tell me that they didn’t have one. How do you live without a TV? Very well, they would tell me. What do you do without a TV? We read, they said. We go on walks. We call our friends and write letters to those who need encouragement. 

We read our Bibles and we pray. 

There it is. That’s what I missed. I spent so much time trying to be sure that I didn’t miss out that I missed out on what really mattered. I missed diving deep into my faith. I missed learning how to pray. I missed knowing the Bible – not just being able to quote a lot of verses, but having the Spirit shape my life the way the Spirit shaped the words on the page. 

I caught all of the television programs. I didn’t miss any of those, but I missed Jesus. In his book The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene writes about an alcoholic priest caught up in a government’s purge of religious leaders who is himself going to be executed for being a priest. Alone in his cell the night before his death, he realizes that if he had made a few decisions differently, he could have been a saint. In the end, he concludes, the only thing that matters is to be a saint.

The old priest was right. All that matters is to be a saint.  It was all that mattered then. That's all that matters now.