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It’s early Friday evening and instead of enjoying a night on the town with friends, I’m unwinding between the crisp sheets of my bed.
The decision to bury my nose in Lesley Kara’s The Rumour as opposed to socialising isn’t down to reclusive behaviour.
When my cellphone’s alarm buzzes in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, I have to get ready for my first-ever 15km race, Timbercity’s infamous Spookhill Challenge.
I’m a newbie runner, only recently having shifted from cheering on my mom and dad from the sidelines to joining them on the sweaty tar (they’ve completed more races than I’ve lived years).
My newfound hobby came as a result of my decision to try find the joy in missing out, or Jomo.
Jomo is the intricate art of doing less – and after more than two months of active practice, I’d say I’ve nailed it easier than those long runs.
My Jomo journey includes declining invites I don’t feel up to, engaging in less online chit-chat and more face-to-face exchanges, and temporarily deactivating my social media accounts (cos let’s be honest, who stays off Instagram forever?)
All of the above led to the discovery of my surprise new pastime – running.
Not sold on the idea of Jomo?
Allow the experts to convince you.
A new book by Danish philosopher Svend Brinkmann, The Joy of Missing Out: The Art Of Self-Restraint In An Age Of Excess, is urging people to do less, make the choice to stay behind and simply enjoy the present.
“To be satisfied nowadays is almost a vice, because it means you are content with what you have and therefore you’re not already chasing after the next thing.” Brinkmann told news website Vox.
“And if we miss out on anything in this life, it’s seen as a kind of existential failure. You failed because you didn’t get to experience everything you could have experienced, or travel as much as you could have travelled, or had as many romantic partners as you could have had.
“So we have this whole mentality of always doing more that’s built into our consumerist society, which, carried to an extreme, is really tragic because it’s not the recipe for a good life for most of us.”
Yoav van der Heyden, a Cape Town-based psychologist, agrees.
He says what’s often perceived as “missing out” and therefore a loss, is in fact the better option sometimes. It’s all down to what he calls energy accounting – how much time we can spend socialising before it’s time to withdraw and recharge.
“We all have a limited capacity for any activity, and we’re
quite different in these limits,” Van der Heyden explains. “A
lot has been said and written about the differing needs of introverts and
extroverts. These categories aren’t quite as clear as they seem, though an
essential feature is whether people gain or use energy though socialising.
“Energy accounting is a useful concept to consider as a way
of assessing one’s own social needs.”
If you’re aware of how events or experiences affect you, and
how much emotional energy you have, you can decide whether to attend an event.
And even when you’re attending you can still decide how much time you’ll spend
there.
Van der Heyden points out that me-time isn’t made up just of lonesome coffee dates or cinema visits – all good ideas, he adds. Instead, the best way to spend time by yourself is by learning new skills.
“I find that the best ways to enjoy me-time are learning new physical skills,” he says “I recently started to learn crafts like woodcarving, metalwork and weaving.”
“You’ll find that the attention required for these activities draws you into a space of being very present in your focus, and sometimes even requires a lot of physical exertion, yet the mind is mostly quite quiet.
“In a way me-time can be a time where you don’t have to be in your mind.”
Right, excuse me while I huff and puff my way through 15km.
Additional source: Vox
