The pressure of not repeating your outfit in any two parties is as real as the heights of euphoria, I see amongst people around me, a day before the launch of a new version of a mobile phone. Inexplicable, but unfortunately, both deeply ingrained into our emotional makeup.
Well, welcome to the world of YOLO and FOMO.
You Only Live Once conveys the idea of seizing every moment and living it. From how I see it, it means you have only one life to soak in all it has to offer – by adding value to your life each day with its different experiences and adding a little bit of it to others’ lives as well. How every new version of a mobile phone adds value to someone’s life is a little difficult for me to comprehend. Unless it is a technological shift from pigeons to landlines to mobile phones, I cannot quite make out why we need a new mobile phone every few months. Let’s be honest, most of us do little more with our mobiles than using WhatsApp and taking photographs, anyway.
This idea grips people the hardest on salary days. Have money, will shop. Why? Because YOLO. Have 10 pairs of Jeans, 50 T-shirts, 20 pairs of shoes and a hundred pairs of earrings. But will get another one, because YOLO.
This aspect of You Only Live Once, marked by impulsivity and a perceived sense of empowerment, is seeded in another serious phenomenon the generation today is faced with – Fear of Missing Out or FOMO. FOMO arises from a feeling of not wanting to be left out, and wanting to “belong.” And people generally do that by wearing, buying, watching, and doing things that are “trending.” Guys, what happened to classics? What some people consider as being left out, can be considered as standing out. Remember, Kareena Kapoor’s character in 3 Idiots wearing her mother’s decades-old watch? Now, that’s the appeal I am talking about.
The biggest challenge with FOMO is that the more you indulge it, the more tightly it holds you in its grip. As you inch closer to having the same phone, the smartwatch, the headphones, the bag your friend has, there is going to appear another friend with an even better version of those. Because brands are not going to stop rolling them out, and that is what they are meant to do. What we are meant to do is use our ability to evaluate and differentiate between a want and a need and save ourselves from being a brand’s next bet on the marketing circuit and falling into the clutches of FOMO.
In the name of YOLO and FOMO, large sums of money are spent on accumulating things, because they are trending, look good on Instagram, are coveted brands and, in some way, signify social stature, and not because we need them!
Old, boring and miserly – I have been called all of these, and quite often at that. But here is my take on You Only Live Once. Because I have only one life, I am trying to be fully conscious and mindful of everything I do with it, and not be nonchalant and wasteful of the opportunity and means I am blessed with. A fulfilling life cannot be only defined by the number of things one possesses, and more so by the many versions of the same things. Because I have only one life, I am not going to spend my time coveting things which are not going to add value to my life. I am not going to spend my hard-earned money on those things for the sole reason that I can afford to do so. Not spending one’s money on shopping does not mean money is not being spent at all. My understanding of YOLO encourages me to spend money on education, travel and healthy eating because these are some of the things that help me expand my horizons, develop meaningful perspectives of and prepare myself to absorb all that life has to offer.
And if there is a fear I am going to spend my energies dealing with, it is that of not being mindful of my consumption patterns because if there is only one life, there is also only one planet. I am going to fear the impact my everyday actions and lifestyle choices have on my fellow human beings and the generations to come in any manner whatsoever. I am going to be mindful that unmindful shopping creates excessive demand on the market, and causes excessive pressure on natural resources to meet that demand and, later, to get rid of it.
For instance, having mentioned mobile phones above, “smartphones contribute to approximately 10% of global e-waste, a number that was estimated to weigh more than 50 million tonnes in 2019. This means that waste streams equivalent to more than 300,000 double decker buses are created every year by smartphones and similar devices.”
I am going to fear that having the best or latest versions of all things material alone is not necessarily going to help me develop a justified view of who we are, where we have come, and what we are capable of. And I want to know and fully experience that; after all, You Only Live Once.
Shopping is a universally loved activity, and I enjoy it, too. In fact, a lot. But it cannot be solely justified by, “It’s my money, I can do whatever with it” kind of an approach. Consumerism has a cost involved, which the glossy advertisements do not project and even the price tags do not cover. It deeply affects people across all sections of the society in the form of pressure to “keep up.” And affects the planet across countries and continents in the form of irreversible environmental damage. I am talking about every single purchase you and I make from any online/ offline source. We cannot not shop, of course. But before we do, it is pertinent that we think through the purpose and necessity of what we are buying, and its life on the planet after we discard it. If we can reduce that impact to as little as possible, by reusing and recycling what we already have, or not buying new ones at all if not necessary, we would have freed the planet and ourselves a little.
What is your understanding of YOLO? How do you deal with FOMO, if you face it at all? It’ll be a learning to know. 🙂
Indian Minimalists 
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