They’d turn up to the opening of an envelope, as long as there’s a buzz about it and the chance to take plenty of photos (fodder for their very active social media accounts).

Then you catch them shortly afterwards on their phone, checking what everyone else is up to, making plans for the next thing – maybe they’ll split early and you’ll see their subsequent destination pop up on their Instagram feed within the hour.

Maybe for some people, that’s just who they are. But for a lot of us, it’s nothing more than a stonking big case of FOMO. 

That’s Fear of Missing Out for those not in the know (who obviously don’t have FOMO because otherwise they’d be across all the relevant social media slang).

Sometimes FOMO might be a force for good – there are those of us who might welcome any motivation, no matter how pitiful, to get us off the couch and out and about.

But I think FOMO mostly comes from a place of insecurity, even greed. And what are we afraid of? 

If I don’t go, people won’t think I’m important/have the right friends/have any friends. If I miss out, I’ll be a loser. Or lacking something. Or I won’t be able to tick that experience off my list in this big Book of Life I’ve been keeping.

Michael Leunig has a cartoon that celebrates, instead, JOMO (Joy of Missing Out). 

I think it’s an attitude of mind that many of us could benefit from cultivating.

Instead of constantly grasping at things, which gets exhausting, we can calmly and quietly let them go by, only reaching for what we genuinely value.

It’s connected with a very unfashionable quality known as ‘contentment’.

If you’re content (with what you have, what you do and – most importantly – who you are), no one can sell you something you don’t want, or pressure you to be/have/do all ‘the things’.

It might break capitalism, but I reckon we’ll all be so much more chilled we won’t even care.