Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I am Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.
Aimee Prasek: I am Aimee Prasek. This month we are talking about our element of fun, and today I want to introduce something way more empowering than FOMO. So we talked about this, just hinted toward it in last episode, so FOMO, Fear of Missing Out. Or it's, it's even maybe more empowering than what we talked about way back in episode 45, which is FOBO Fear of Being Over.
Aimee Prasek: Remember that?
Henry: I loved that. I love that.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Aimee Prasek: [00:01:00] Fear
Henry: of being over concept.
Aimee Prasek: I'm gonna put that one in here too. 'cause if you're resonating with FOMO, FOBO, and what we're gonna talk about GOMO, there's, you've, we've got so many good resources for you.
Henry: Aimee, did you make this up? Did, did you come up with GOMO?
Aimee Prasek: No. Or maybe, I'm not sure. I, inspired by Oliver Burkeman.
Henry: Yeah, but still
Aimee Prasek: so I, maybe
Henry: It's a great acronym.
Aimee Prasek: GOMO Guarantee of Missing Out. I think I made it up. I don't know if I didn't. Sorry. Whoever did it first. I cite you now. Yeah. GOMO Guarantee of Missing Out, inspired by Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks book I love. Here's some wisdom from him to start us off to explain this. " As I make hundreds of small choices throughout the day, I'm building a life, but at one and the same time, I'm closing off the possibility of countless others forever. [00:02:00] The original Latin word for decide," Ooh,
Henry: Decidere
Aimee Prasek: Ooh, that sounds good. Yeah. Decidere.
Henry: Decidire, I dunno. I'm making it up.
Aimee Prasek: That the Latin word for decide "means to cut off as in slicing away alternatives. It's a close cousin of words like homicide and suicide." Interesting. "Any finite life, even the best one you could possibly imagine is therefore a matter of ceaselessly, waving goodbye to possibility."
Henry: Ooh.
Aimee Prasek: God, our Fun episodes start off so depressing all the time. Sorry guys. So at first glance this, this seems like terrible news. Guaranteed, right? Guaranteed of Missing Out. Okay, but let's sit for a while with it. I think it starts to feel really freeing.
Henry: Mm-hmm.
Aimee Prasek: I feel that it's kind of a relief. I cannot do everything I want. [00:03:00] I can't. But I think we often get tripped up in this space of seeing these infinite possibilities, believing we can have them all, and then getting paralyzed and not acting on any of them, or not acting on any of them very well. Because we're just so overwhelmed. We can't prioritize. We can't commit. So when I really sit with this, I can't have it all. Then I think the pressure can actually come off a bit. Then I think, okay, if I can't have it all, what do I really want to do then? What do I really wanna create? What really matters to me?
Henry: Oof. I'm still kinda sitting with the, what was the word, the phrase.
Henry: Ceaselessly waving
Aimee Prasek: goodbye to possibility. I
Henry: Yeah. .,
Aimee Prasek: I know
Henry: that's hard for me. Aimee, I gotta admit. So I know you're familiar with, uh, [00:04:00] Myers-Briggs personality types. The fourth and last of those dichotomies in Myers-Briggs is judging or J or perceiving or P.
Aimee Prasek: Okay.
Henry: So J's love structure and putting closure on things.
Henry: Someone who is a strong J might really love this concept. While P's tend to stay flexible and love to be spontaneous. So in other words, they, I should say, we like to keep our options open. I am way, way far out on one end of the, the spectrum here with with P.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: and I feel like it's really hard for me to commit or make a decision of anything that cuts off other options.
Aimee Prasek: Hmm.
Henry: So this is tough for me, I gotta admit. And still I can see the wisdom in it.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Maybe [00:05:00] more so for you,
Henry: Yeah, exactly, because it's a little painful to cut off possibilities. But
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: Yeah, so I, we've talked about, you know, spectrums of emotions and behaviors, and generally speaking, the idea is if you're way out on one end of the spectrum, it's healthiest to move toward the middle.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: To find, find the middle way, and I can certainly see that in my case here. I also love the way that the author talks about this, how one choice leads us down a certain path, and then soon we're confronted with another choice, which takes us down a slightly different path, on and on and on. It's kind of like this incredibly complex decision tree.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: It's one that never stops as long as we're living. But I like that. It, it's a really great perspective. And I like too, how it, it fits with something we have talked about [00:06:00] more than once, how a joyful or authentic life is built brick by brick by the dozens of little choices we make every single day. This image though of ceaselessly waving goodbye to possibility, it feels very powerful and poignant to me, and it, and it actually feels very true.
Henry: It, it's a reminder to me of why letting go is such an essential skill for a joyful life. You know, waving goodbye to possibility is really a constant sense of letting go. Whether we like it or not. And I personally don't like it. I feel, I feel it very challenging,
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: And yet I'm in a time in my life when letting go is really, really important. So it just gets right to the heart of this [00:07:00] concept of impermanence.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: A choice arises, I decide on that choice, my life changes and all other possibilities cease to exist. Wow. It's still hard.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah,
Henry: It's still hard, but let's, let's keep, let's keep talking it through.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. We will do some more episodes on acceptance and letting go this fall, Henry. We got you.
Henry: I think we need to. Please.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's great that you brought in the personality types because first glance this kind of, GOMO is devastating for a more P person or extroverted type. It might seem that way.
Aimee Prasek: And then the introverted folks are like, "Oh, thank you. I'd love to miss out on that next event that I was got voluntold to do." But I think this kind of letting go shows up for all of us, [00:08:00] no matter your Meyers- Briggs type, well, of course, right. The only thing we're sure about is change and impermanence. It doesn't matter where you fall on the extroversion, introversion scale. For example, for me, if you look at my computer and the number of tabs I keep open just in case, is kind of a good metaphor for my sometimes unhealthy relationship with information. Like, I wanna know all of it. I don't wanna be in the dark.
Aimee Prasek: I don't wanna feel inferior intellectually. It's a problem. I'm, I've really had to work on this insecurity and I've come a long way. I can say, I don't know, finally, instead of making up stupid stuff. But it's still, it, it gives me a little bit of a gut punch sometimes. And part of it has been as simple as, it's been as simple as realizing that I can't know it all, guaranteed. That says it sounds so obvious. All of this sounds so obvious to say [00:09:00] out loud, but we do not hold that message or truth or guarantee with ourselves quite so gently, so easily. I, guaranteed, will never know it all. You, guaranteed, will never know it all, not even close. So if that's true (it is), what do I really wanna learn about? And like really learn about? Really put my mind to work on. That's more empowering than feeling a joyless urgency to try to know as much as I can, as fast as I can to prove something to myself or someone else. So it might not just be in activities, but it might be in a different kind of domain, like learning or whatever. And this lines up to something as well called the paradox of choice. This is a concept introduced by psychologist Barry Schwartz. He found that the more options we have, the less satisfied we feel with our decision. There's a bunch of [00:10:00] hilarious studies. I think they're funny looking into this phenomenon, and this is the usual sort of methods of the study. Often they'll show a group of research participants some paintings or types of food or something, and then half of them will be allowed to choose one.
Aimee Prasek: You can choose one. That's it. That's the one you get. Choose it, you keep it. The other half will be allowed to choose and they can also come back in a week to exchange it for one of the other options.
Henry: Ooh, sign me up.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Kay. Okay. Guess which group is consistently happier with their choice?
Henry: Oh, I'm pretty sure it's the group that does not get to return it for something else. Right?
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, that second group the whole week, they're like, "ah, I should have chose that other one. Well, I can choose the other one. Well, no, wait, maybe I want that third one. Well, let's see." And the first group is like, "oh, sweet. These chocolates are amazing. I'm so glad I, I chose them." Right? So we validate our [00:11:00] decision in some ways. And I think this is the case because today for many of us, we have so many perceived routes, choices, opportunities.
Aimee Prasek: That's not a bad thing. The bad thing about it, sort of all those choices, is that when we can't prune stuff out, when we can't let go of some options, even good options, we can get perpetually stuck in this paradox of choice. Constantly regretting or feeling dissatisfied with our decisions if we can't prune some of 'em out. I have to share another quote from Oliver Burkeman here that I think nails it. He wrote, "convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life's tedious tasks. But it's a lie."
Henry: Oops.
Aimee Prasek: "You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss [00:12:00] that results." I mean, this all sounds so terrible. This guarantee of missing out of letting go of all these options, the inevitable sense of loss, that results, but it is a necessary practice. It just is. It's the only way to navigate this fire hose of perceived infinite choices and this paradox of choice. But the other paradox, here's the good news— God, we need some good news. Oh, here's the paradox. When we are able to do this, when we're able to prune, let go of some options, make a choice, we can come into a sense of freedom. When we prune those things out, we create a situation where we can actually manage to make a choice. An actual freedom to choose instead of being bombarded and paralyzed by an infinite sort of buffet. Then we can be conscious of and happier with our choice.
Henry: [00:13:00] Well, I can just totally relate to this, Aimee.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: You know, even though I love to keep my options open, life does feel a lot easier when there are only one or two options to choose from. I remember learning a long time ago, maybe it was from the work of Barry Schwartz, I can't remember, but just that, that people are happier when they have fewer choices.
Henry: And I think that's clearly true for me and I see it in my clients too. Narrowing our list of options is really a good strategy.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: I also love the idea you, you introduced of pruning. You know, it's something I am learning as I go the hard way as a gardener.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: I'm just constantly overdoing it by planting too much.
Henry: So I'm a landscape gardener, not a, not a vegetable gardener. And so, you know, it's my version of you [00:14:00] keeping too many tabs open, Aimee. It's, you know, and by the way, I can confirm that 'cause I've seen your screen when you share it. Geez.
Aimee Prasek: Okay. I haven't beat the tab thing yet. I'm working on it.
Henry: I mean, seriously. I mean, that's a lot of tabs.
Aimee Prasek: I know my computer crashes.
Henry: Wow.
Aimee Prasek: It's terrible you guys.
Henry: But, you know, I, I do the same thing. And, you know, with my gardening, again, I, I wanna get everything in there that I think might be beautiful, you know, and
Aimee Prasek: That's the point, yeah. The possibility of more beauty.
Henry: Yeah, well, exactly. And, and occasionally I will see a garden that's just probably overly full of stuff and it's still beautiful, but for the most part, my eye is drawn to something when it's not overly crowded.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah,
Henry: You know, when there's just a few really great things that have got some room to breathe, to grow to, to show off their particular form of beauty.
Henry: They stand out because they are not crowded out. [00:15:00] You know and of course, gardening here is just a metaphor for life and
Aimee Prasek: Mm.
Henry: packing things in, keeping all my options open, refusing to leave space in my life. You know, I'm, I'm really starting to get on board with this GOMO acronym. The wisdom of accepting that there are limits and living within the narrowing of our choices.
Aimee Prasek: Mm.
Henry: So right off the top of my head, I can think of two ways I've tried to incorporate this kind of pruning into my life with varying degrees of success.
Henry: I will say. And they sound really simple, but in my experience, they're actually not simple at all. So one of them is to finish one thing before moving on to the next. I, I remember I was, I had a, a friend [00:16:00] from earlier in my life, we were exchanging our journals back and forth. We, he'd, or a single journal we shared and he would write something in it and then send it to me, and then I would write something kind of in response and mail it back to him.
Henry: This was like old school mailing back and forth. It was really cool. It was a fun, fun idea. And I remember him saying that his, he was devoting the year, can't remember what year, but it was a long time ago. He was gonna devote the year to finishing something. Just finishing things before starting something else.
Henry: And I remember thinking that was such a cool idea and tried it and found it was really, really hard. But it's like, you know, closing one tab, Aimee before you open up another one.
Aimee Prasek: Yep.
Henry: And really it has a lot to do with acceptance. You know, that we accept the imperfection, accept that we're not gonna be able to do everything, accept that we're singletasking; [00:17:00] doing one thing at a time instead of this myth that we can multitask and be more efficient.
Henry: So much about acceptance and letting go. Wow. And the other strategy is to embrace stillness. And by that I don't mean exactly meditation, although that's a great way to kind of strengthen those muscles. But it can be as simple as taking a few breaths in between your tasks. It can be letting what you have just gone through marinate for a while inside yourself.
Henry: Soak it in, let yourself feel whatever you're feeling. Because I think if you do that, if you give yourself that bit of stillness, it really helps to decide, okay, then what is the next right thing for me to do?
Aimee Prasek: I don't mean to just plug one of our own conversations on how to help with this process, [00:18:00] but it really links up to what you're saying right there, Henry. We do this at the Joy Lab Program. This practice of tuning in, accepting, pruning and taking action that resonates with us. do join us in the program for kinda more step-by-step in this process. But if you can't or don't wanna join us there, definitely take some time to also work through our authenticity series. I referenced that a few episodes ago. I'm gonna link it here again. I think this is a really helpful series to tune into our, true north, our inner wisdom. Because our deep wisdom knows that there is a guarantee of missing out. And it's, that's not a bad thing. It's an opportunity to make a choice and be engaged in something that resonates with us, that brings more life and meaning into our world, and that spreads outside ourselves, that taps into our joy and spreads it [00:19:00] out. So I'll link it in the show notes. And then we are, we're gonna do more on acceptance and letting go in the fall.
Henry: We must.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, we need to get our, our tabs minimized. Not just bookmarked, like close 'em up.
Aimee Prasek: I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on that. But yeah, we've got, some great, things to work on as a community, as we work to practice this art of acceptance and letting go as we embrace GOMO, the guarantee of missing out, not a bad thing, an opportunity for more freedom of choice and meaning. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna close our episode today with some wisdom from a teacher, a meditation teacher, Ruth King. I think it fits. Here's what she wrote. "Deep letting go can bring us to a place where we may feel the groundlessness of our being. This can be very terrifying, so we hold on. But if we can move [00:20:00] beyond the fear, we may see that these feelings are really the precursor to freedom."
Aimee Prasek: Thank you for listening to the Joy Lab podcast. If you enjoy today's show, visit JoyLab.coach to learn more about the full Joy Lab program. Be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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