The joy of missing out: choosing your own pace
For years, we were taught to fear missing out. The party you skipped. The trend you didn’t buy into. The book everyone else seemed to be reading. The platform you weren’t on. FOMO became a quiet driver of behaviour, nudging us to consume more, show up more, explain ourselves more.
Yet for a growing number of people, something has shifted. Missing out no longer feels like loss. It feels like relief.
This is the joy of missing out — not as withdrawal, but as a conscious choice to stop swimming with the current and begin walking one’s own way.
Stepping Away from the Noise
Leaving social media is often the first, most confronting step. Platforms are designed to keep attention hooked, not to nurture clarity. From a neuroscience perspective, social media exploits the brain’s dopaminergic reward system, the same circuitry involved in gambling and addiction. Variable rewards (likes, comments, novelty) create a loop of anticipation and craving, fragmenting attention and increasing baseline anxiety.
Research shows that constant comparison activates the brain’s threat systems, particularly the amygdala, reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and social vigilance. When we step away, the nervous system begins to downshift. Cortisol levels stabilise. Attention becomes less scattered. Thought regains depth.
Missing out, in this sense, is not isolation, it is neurological recovery.
Opting Out of Trends and Scripts
There is a quiet power in not buying the latest thing, not chasing the newest productivity hack, not consuming the same self-help books packaged in slightly different language. Psychologically, trends offer belonging. They reduce uncertainty by telling us what to want and how to improve ourselves.
But over time, this externalisation of authority erodes self-trust. Instead of listening inwardly, we scan outward for cues. Choosing to opt out restores agency. It strengthens what psychologists call an internal locus of control, the belief that one’s life is shaped primarily by personal values and choices, rather than external pressures.
The brain responds positively to this shift. Autonomy is a core psychological need. When it is met, motivation becomes more sustainable, stress decreases and self-esteem grows quietly, without the need for validation.
Investing in the Ordinary, Radical Things
Good food. Regular movement. A calm, intentional home. These may sound unremarkable, but biologically they are transformative.
Nutrient-dense meals support neurotransmitter synthesis. Strength training and steady exercise increase BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), supporting learning, mood regulation and resilience. A calm environment reduces cognitive load, allowing the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s centre for planning and reflection, to function optimally.
None of this is glamorous. None of it performs well online. Yet it is precisely these choices that stabilise the nervous system and build long-term mental health.
Leaving the Party Behind
Dropping the party lifestyle, giving up alcohol and stepping away from friendships that revolve around chaos can feel socially risky. Alcohol, in particular, is deeply normalised, despite its well-documented effects on sleep, anxiety and emotional regulation.
From a neuroscience standpoint, alcohol disrupts GABA and glutamate balance, initially numbing stress but ultimately increasing anxiety and emotional volatility. Psychologically, environments built around excess often discourage growth, reflection and accountability.
Choosing distance is not moral superiority; it is self-preservation. It is recognising that not every connection is supportive, and not every bond is meant to last across all phases of life.
Grief often accompanies this choice — grief for shared history, for familiarity, for the version of oneself that belonged there. But grief is not a sign of mistake. It is a sign of transition.
Are We Becoming Isolated or More Conscious?
This is the central question. Are we withdrawing from the world, or finally engaging with it on our own terms?
Psychology distinguishes between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness is the pain of disconnection. Solitude is the chosen space in which identity consolidates. The latter has been linked to creativity, emotional regulation and self-awareness.
In an overstimulated world, choosing less is not avoidance, it is discernment. It reflects a more mature relationship with energy, time and attention. Neuroscience supports this: the brain requires periods of low stimulation to integrate experience, consolidate memory and generate insight.
Constant engagement is not a marker of health. Selective engagement is.
Walking Your Own Way
The joy of missing out is quiet. It does not announce itself. It shows up in mornings without dread, in friendships that feel reciprocal, in a body that feels safe to inhabit, in thoughts that are no longer drowned out by noise.
It is the understanding that a meaningful life does not need an audience, that growth does not have to be documented, and that peace is not something you find, it is something you choose, again and again.
In a world that moves fast, opting out is not falling behind. It may be the most intelligent, self-aware move you can make.
