Tag: fomo

Combating Option Overload and Getting Back to Living

I’m often jealous of previous generations.  Not just because they got to eat bread without feeling guilty, but for the lack of options they enjoyed.  Don’t get me wrong, having no options isn’t fun, but having so many options your circuits get overloaded isn’t much fun either.

No matter what we’re doing, we have so many options that we can’t possibly try them all.  How do we know we’re choosing the right entertainment?  Blizzard flavor? Nigerian prince to send our money to? How do we know we’re not missing out?!

The fear of missing out makes having too many options stressful, rather than freeing, because we’re continually worried we’ll choose wrong.  From little decisions like What if I pick the wrong Netflix movie, to huge decisions like What if I pick the wrong Netflix series, we’re overloaded and stressed out with too many options at every turn in our lives. Continue reading “Combating Option Overload and Getting Back to Living”

Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction

There are two types of attention we give- Divided Attention and Selective Attention.

Divided attention is where our minds are giving our attention to multiple sources at the same time.  Selective attention is when our attention is focused on one thing.  Generally speaking, having the ability for divided attention is good, but often the way we choose to use that ability is not good.

Sometimes life requires we give divided attention.  Too much divided attention leads us to feel spread out and overwhelmed.

When we give something our selective attention we’re able to go deeper and get into a flow state more easily.

Many things require our selective attention, but we often try to get away with just giving our divided attention.  How many times have you been watching a movie and instead of giving your selective attention you decide to look at your phone?  At no point do you feel like you aren’t paying attention to the dialogue, but before long, you look up and realize you have no idea where the characters are, or what they’re doing. Continue reading “Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction”