The days that I had imagined for years was finally here. College. I left behind the high school years that involved me playing sports every season of every year, holding positions in various clubs, volunteering anywhere I could, working ridiculous hours and still trying to juggle a social life. Despite hardly ever having any time to myself, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my past four years any other way. I can truly say I got the most out of my time in high school, which is why when I came to college I knew I wanted to capitalize on any opportunity to get involved and have a fun time. With that being said, the chance of potentially missing out on something was too much of a risk that I was not willing to take.
Within the first few weeks at college, I was quick to join clubs around campus and made the decision to rush a sorority. Right off the bat, while I was going through the new member process for my sorority, I also had at least one extracurricular club commitment every night. I went out at least twice during the weekend, if not the additional Thursday night outing, and even though I had a blast, I’ve come to realize that most of the times, I was being busy and going out because I felt like I had to.
I was a victim of suffering from FOMO: the Fear Of Missing Out. It all started with an idea to get a little extra sleep, but afterward I heard stories of the night I had missed with friends for days to come, including jokes I didn’t understand and moments I wasn’t a part of. It killed me inside knowing that I wasn’t there to experience whatever they had.
Seeing friends on my floor getting ready and blasting music makes me question whether or not I should be doing that too, but I've realized that the house parties and frats will be there tomorrow, and that it’s totally okay to take time for yourself and just decide that you want to chill in bed with your Saturday night.
Once you come to terms with the idea that there will be plenty of other weekends ahead of you, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much pressure is relieved from feeling like you needed to be doing something crazy fun every single night. You do only have four years, make the most of it, but please, leave some time to just chill, and don’t let FOMO get the best of you like it did for me my first semester of college.
