My first kiss.<\/p>\n
Being on stage in high school, feeling like a true entertainer.<\/p>\n
Scoring a goal in the last minute of an official soccer game.<\/p>\n
Being on TV.<\/p>\n
Finishing the creation of my first book.<\/p>\n
Seeing rows and rows of that book in a store.<\/p>\n
Selling a song to a famous Dutch artist.<\/p>\n
And then doing it again.<\/p>\n
Another first kiss, but with a different girl.<\/p>\n
Finishing the copy of my second book.<\/p>\n
Being there when my daughter was born.<\/p>\n
Taking her to school for the first time.<\/p>\n
Being present when she graduated.<\/p>\n
Our first city trip together, visiting London, chilling on the couch of our first shared Airbnb in a bubble of delicious joy.<\/p>\n
Or many times during coaching, seeing faces in pain relax SO much that they instantly look 20 years younger.<\/p>\n
The first day of spring, that first REAL day.<\/p>\n
Publishing my eighth book.<\/p>\n
Drinking a perfect cup of coffee on a perfect rainy square in Paris.<\/p>\n
And of course the endless amounts of sunsets and sunrises and beach scenes and forest walks and glorious moments with friends where I simply couldn\u2019t talk anymore because I was laughing so hard I almost choked.<\/p>\n
So much awesome shit.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the thing: most of these things are buried somewhere deep inside.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they pop up, but most of the time they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t bring me sweet happiness all day long, every day, no matter what.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I can willfully use them to cure my moments of sadness and lostness and insecurity.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s also not that I cherish them constantly, nor that they inspire me all the time.<\/p>\n
But that is EXACTLY what the mind tells and sells us when we are not out there \u2018creating memories\u2019.<\/p>\n
We feel totally fucked when thoughts arise that make it very clear we’re wasting our time.<\/p>\n
We get paralyzed by guilt when we\u2019re inside while the sun shines and everybody else is probably living an amazing outdoor life.<\/p>\n
We should constantly, endlessly aim for Our Best Life, and Our Best Selves, and a never-ending stream of Amazing Moments.<\/p>\n
And it will never stop.<\/p>\n
This is the essence of FOMO: the idea of being in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing.<\/p>\n
Not because you ARE (how could you ever really know for sure?), but because the mind has created a perfect imaginary place that easily wins over the present moment.<\/p>\n
It forces us to compare what is actually going on, to what COULD be happening.<\/p>\n
In theory.<\/p>\n
In our fantasy.<\/p>\n
In a place and time that don\u2019t really exist.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re crushed by the dream body we don\u2019t have, the perfect partner who isn\u2019t there, the ideal moment we aren\u2019t living in, the book we didn\u2019t write (or the second one), the career we\u2019re not crushing, the millions we aren\u2019t earning, the trips we’re not making, and the likes we\u2019re not getting.<\/p>\n
And so here we go again.<\/p>\n
Pursuing another amazing moment, goal, dream, objective, medal, viral Instagram post, very important thing.<\/p>\n
Scratching the itch.<\/p>\n
Dancing the FOMO jive.<\/p>\n
Feeling miserable and lacking, in spite of what we already collected.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n
We need more.<\/p>\n
MORE, you lazy-ass motherfucker!<\/p>\n
Scratch, scratch, scratch.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a game you can\u2019t win.<\/p>\n
But let me tell you this:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t even have to play it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Photo by @amr_taha, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve had hundreds of truly amazing moments in my life. My first kiss. Being on stage in high school, feeling like a true entertainer. Scoring a goal in the last minute of an official soccer game. Being on TV. Finishing the creation of my first book. Seeing rows and rows of that book in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,117,100,116,113,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34492,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34490\/revisions\/34492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}