I love this time of the year. It’s full of rain and wind in Singapore, and birdsong. Birds love the rain. Why, the other day on a Zoom call with a colleague in Kuala Lumpur, there was a constant squeaking noise in the background, and I asked him if his door hinge needed oiling? And he said, “It’s a bird, always singing at this time of the morning.”
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday season, we hear birdsong more clearly in urban cities like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur because there is less traffic noise to compete with. Everyone is away for the holidays.
Except me. It’s intentional. A believer in the saying, “When everyone’s doing one thing, do the other”, I choose to stay home and be a voyeur at this time, and watch everyone travel.
So, over the past weeks, I’ve been watching neighbours come and go with their suitcases and friends travelling here, there and everywhere.
And I don’t feel a shred of envy or jealousy.
In fact, according to this article in The Washington Post, I am actually enjoying the rush of JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out.
“JOMO reminds us that we can not only not fear that we are missing something important, but actually enjoy missing something,” said Tali Gazit, an associate professor of information science at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.
He adds, “JOMO is actually being able to be in the here and now. To be able to enjoy what you are doing now without looking left and right and be jealous or anxious about missing something.”
JOMO is of course a derivative of the original OMO – FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). This was a term coined in the early days of social media, when the outpourings of people eating better food, wearing better clothes, having better holidays than us – “my sunset is bigger than yours” – triggered explosions of envy around the world.
Well, with FOMO relegated to the past, I’ve experienced a certain sense of joy in staying home and missing out in waiting in long immigration queues in airports, being caught in traffic jams and competing with crowds everywhere as travellers across Asia continue to make up for the lost years of Covid.
I heard that it got pretty bad in Bali over New Year – that one day, there were so many cars from and to the airport and the gridlock so severe that some outbound passengers were forced to get out of their car and walk to the airport and that transfers to hotels, which normally would take 20 minutes, took up to four hours.
Then there were the stories of overcrowding in popular tourist spots in Tokyo and Kyoto where I believe half of Singapore travelled to. The strong Singapore dollar and the low yen easily made Japan the most popular destination for Singaporeans, hands down.
First industry resolution for 2024: We really must do something about this overcrowding in popular spots – all this talk of AI and data, surely, we must be able to use it to manage crowds and disperse tourism.
Back to FOMO – it also drove some of our decisions in business. I am always baffled by those who bemoan certain trade shows and events for their lack of effectiveness but then go every year anyway because “our competitors are there and if we are not, it will send a signal”.
Well, to every season, there’s a different signal and perhaps with JOMO, the new signal will be,
“I choose not to be there because I want to be more deliberate and intentional about what I do with my time and resource.”
Oh wait, that’s actually COMO – the third OMO – Courage of Missing Out. I was told of this third OMO by Karun Budhraja of Amadeus who, over the year end period, had attended a lecture at the university his daughter was studying in. As Budhraja explained it, “Gen Z felt that they were under ‘attack’ from Insta, Snap and TikTok. While putting their feelings out there and getting instant gratification gave them a kick, “all the ‘fake’ connections increased the FOMO in them.”
Realising this was not helping them, he added, “They’ve consciously taken on a path (or should one say course correct). They are mustering the courage to miss out and feel the joy – COMO. It’s a time of transition (for some), of posting less on social media, sharing fewer, engaging less on social media, and with this comes JOMO – getting back to basics, it’s almost like going back in time. Connecting personally (in person), talking rather than chatting, speaking rather than texting.”
In other words, have COMO and JOMO will follow.
So, second resolution of 2024: Make a list of things I want to have COMO about. Guess what’s first on the list?