Enjoying Life's Moments Rather Than Regretting Missed Ones - No Worries About Being Left Behind

Enjoying Life's Moments Rather Than Regretting Missed Ones - No Worries About Being Left Behind

Entertainment Overload: The New Psychological Struggle

In our contemporary world, we're blessed with an unparalleled abundance of entertainment and social events at our fingertips. But with this bounty comes a hidden pitfall – an overabundance of choices that our ancient brains were never designed to handle.

Year after year, over 50,000 concerts enthrall audiences across the United States, with over 140 performers gracing the stage at Coachella alone. Meanwhile, Netflix boasts a library of more than 5,000 films and 2,500 series, while U.S. publishers churn out a staggering 275,000 new titles annually.

This avalanche of choices has given rise to a modern psychological predicament, dubbed "choice overload." This phenomenon occurs when having too many options decreases our satisfaction and escalates our anxiety. Our decision-making centers, the prefrontal cortex, become burdened as they process numerous alternatives, triggering heightened stress responses.

Some evolutionary psychologists argue that this heightened stress response could have once been adaptive. In small, hunter-gatherer communities, shunning social activities might have posed serious consequences on survival and reproductive success.

However, in today's world, these same mechanisms are perpetually activated by an overwhelming buffet of events to attend, TV shows to watch, books to read, and so forth.

The result? Temporal angst: the fear that we're not seizingeach moment to its fullest potential. This sets off a vicious cycle where every choice feels pressing, yet none can satiate our instinct to do more.

Enter YAMA – or "You're Always Missing Out." This new term, coined on a tweet, encapsulates the notion that since we're always already missing something, there's no use wrestling with feelings of inadequacy. Embrace life, make choices, and do so without regret! (Who knows why they didn't opt for YAMO instead.)

Life in an Infinite Buffet

When faced with too many tantalizing options, our brains become overwhelmed and underperforming. We enter an endless loop of indecision, comparison, and self-doubt.

However, YAMA encourages us to approach life with a more relaxed mindset. Rather than sweating the opportunities we may miss, we should simply enjoy the present moment and let go of the stress that comes with constant analysis.

JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) shares some similarities with YAMA but emphasizes finding joy in the choices we don't make. YAMA, on the other hand, acknowledges that experiencing everything our world has to offer is an impossibility, and suggests embracing that limitation rather than harboring regret for unrealized possibilities.

I find this acceptance refreshing. YAMA acknowledges that missing out is a universal part of the human experience. Instead of struggling against that reality or devising strategies to mitigate its effects, YAMA urges us to simply accept it, limited as we are by our physical and mental constraints.

Implementing YAMA in Daily Life

YAMA offers a new perspective on choice-making, whether it's deciding what to watch, which concert to attend, or selecting your next book to read. Follow these steps to invite YAMA into your life:

1) Pre-activity: Remind yourself that every choice necessarily excludes myriad other options, and there's no need to agonize over it. Acknowledge that, given our current understanding of physics, we are unable to experience every possible option available. This realization can help alleviate the pressure to make the absolute best use of your time.

2) During the activity: If your thoughts wander to other possibilities or comparisons, gently steer your focus back to your current experience. YAMA is not about forced happiness, but about mindfully enjoying the choice you've made.

3) Post-activity: Avoid dwelling on whether you made the "right" choice or seeking validation through social media or planning your next activity. Instead, recognize that you chose one option out of many, and that this limitation is inherent to being human.

Pay attention to the feelings evoked by different decision-making approaches. Experiment with various strategies – researching thoroughly, choosing randomly, or allowing friends to decide – to learn that the approach frequently matters less than we think, and that relinquishing control can be surprisingly liberating.

YAMA's greatest appeal lies in its authenticity. We are finite beings in an infinite universe. No amount of time management or planning can alter that. By accepting our limitations rather than constantly striving to overcome them, we can make choices out of curiosity instead of dread, and perhaps discover that missing out isn't the insurmountable challenge we once feared it was.

1. The fear of not seizing each moment to its fullest potential, known as "temporal angst", arises due to an overwhelming number of entertainment choices, be it concerts, TV shows, books, or lifestyles like fashion-and-beauty, home-and-garden, and travel.
2. Instead of being anxious about missing out on various events or experiences, such as food-and-drink trends, relationships, pets, or even shopping sprees, YAMA encourages a more relaxed approach to life.
3. YAMA's inclusion extends to daily activities as well, suggesting that deciding on a car brand, for example, shouldn't be a source of stress, but rather a choice made without regret, understanding that there are countless other options in the world.
4. By adopting the YAMA mindset, we can embrace life enthusiastically, make choices mindfully, and enjoy each decision without the burden of fearing what we might be missing elsewhere in our endless buffet of options.

Read also: