The Other Side Of The Coin

"Heads or tails?"
She asked.​
Waving the shiny quarter in front of my face. Like a DARE. 
Now, I am not one that makes decisions a whim. I usually ponder and weigh in all the options laid out in front of me. Like the proper Libra that I am - I consider all the scenarios prior to making my choice. I do that when I read the menu in a restaurant, or when I go down the rabbit hole of product reviews on Amazon, or when I contemplate a big life move. 
"HEADS or TAILS!?" 
She insisted. 
"Okay, heads, heads. I'll be heads."
She rolled her eyes, scolding me for taking so long coming up with that unoriginal answer.
And HOP!
The quarter was up in the air, off to its journey.
In the millisecond it took for the quarter to flaunt its flying expertise like the most arrogant Bowie 747 would - a thought creeped up. I thought to myself: what if it's tail?
And then it hit me.
I am experiencing fomo* (*Fear Of Missing Out) even while calibrating over who will go first at a game of Hide & Seek with a six year old child.

HELP!
Fomo got me. It got me again. Just like the neighbor's grass is always greener, so is the other side of the coin more shiny, more attractive, more desired. 

When we are always looking at the other side of the coin....be it when comparing our lives to other people's glamorous lives on instagram (newsflash - glamour is overrated and fades so quickly it's as if it never existed at all), or when we feel regret over the job that slipped away, or the one that got away, or when we stay home following a Stay At Home order but in some other parts of the world our friends and family are having the time of their lives, hugging, mingling, partying. No masks. No virus. No worries in the world. (serious fomo there!)

Fomo is always there waiting for an opportunity to show up in our lives, to remind us that we could be doing something else, something better. Fomo is the little devil on your shoulder that is teasing you (in an annoyingly menacing voice, of course) about what you haven't achieved yet in your life.
Fomo is a friend to depression, a gateway to it actually. After all - it is a FEAR.
And what are we missing out on anyways!? Do we really know how the course of our life would have run if we DID get that job, or that relationship, or went to that glamorous event that could have changed our lives?
 
We've all grown up believing the story of Cinderella a tad too much.
What would her story be if she DIDN'T go the ball? We were brought up to believe that she would continue living a horrible life and wishing she had met a fairy god mother or marry a prince. 
But what would we find if we flip the story of Cinderella on its head?  
Would she have eventually overcome the abuse she was facing by her step-mother and step-sisters? Would she have become a self-made entrepreneur, starting an empire of cleaning supplies and expertise thanks to the skills she learned while facing adversity? Would she have learned to love herself, and maybe even welcome a romantic partner to her life? Maybe one that would love her for who she is rather than the beautiful dress and shoes she was wearing?  Just a thought. 

What do we find if we face the fear, the fomo, and actually, purposefully, miss out.
We may find that we are not missing out on anything at all.

And just like that - the thought passed, and the coin dropped to the ground. 

It was HEADS. 

But seeing the disappointed face of the little girl in front of me - recognizing the look of fomo in her eyes - I let her go hide first, and our game of hide & seek began.

Me - 1   Fomo - 0