FOMO or Phone No Mo?

      I woke up today and grabbed my coffee, checking my email between sips. I came back upstairs and did a quick devotion, before scrolling through Instagram feeds. While tying my tennis shoes I clicked through Snapchat stories. And of course I had to pin a couple pictures on Pinterest while walking out the door. By the time I finally started hiking I pulled out my phone to check my emails again. As if in the 10 minutes I had driven to the park my inbox would of quickly filled up with millions of new emails needing my attention.

    Why was I so consumed and caught up in scrolling and clicking and checking? Because I was desiring connection. Social media was practically made for what humans desire most, relationship. To see if people like us enough to comment on our newest picture, or send us a morning snap, or hit us up with an email. We see it as a stamp of approval. That we are worthy of being loved and wanted by those around us.

    I've had times I felt like I had no friends. I'm being 100% honest right now and just saying it, because it's something that most people are too afraid to say out loud. Every single human being has a fear of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or the fear of having no one, and we don't like to admit it. There have been times I've scrolled through my contact list not seeing even one name that I could call up to hang out or talk too about a hard time I was going through. A lot of girls, especially, won't ever admit they have experienced these seasons of loneliness. Instead we want to be seen as the "popular, everyone wants to be there friend, always doing something with someone" girl. We don't want to be seen as the "sitting alone in sweats on a Friday night, watching snapchats of everyone having a great time while you only have your dog to talk to" girl. 

    Especially in seasons of loneliness and desperation for connection I most turn to my phone. As long as I can keep my likes up, and get people to still comment about "how cute" I am and repin my things on pinterest.... then I am still apart of things and wanted. I start to put more effort and attention in keeping up my image and standing over social media, than I put in my physical friendships. Now there isn't anything wrong with posting cute pictures of yourself or wanting to get that aesthetically pleasing profile or keeping up with friends on snapchat. Social media, while it has its cons, can be an amazing way to keep in touch with friends and family and shine God's love. But once it starts to become our sole outlet for filling that desire for connection, then it becomes a problem.

1. In times of loneliness we have to put down our phones
 
     Nothing greater increases feelings of loneliness and FOMO, than looking at our phones. Seeing everyones snapchats of their "fun times out" or all the pretty pictures girls are posting when you haven't posted one in weeks. It's so tempting to want to just scroll through a couple pictures. We think it will be harmless, but in down moments it ends up harming us more than we think. We start to see ourselves as a problem, as someone no one would want to hang with, as someone who no one wants.
     I also didn't see how being so invested in my phone for that sense of connection was what was keeping from finding relationships. If I had met any girl I knew for lunch, put away from phone, looked her straight in the eyes and just asked her to tell me how her life was going, I would've of easily been able to find girls to fellowship with.


2. Run to God

    I know we always hear the cheesy statement "Jesus is our greatest friend", but it's true whether we realize it or not. There have been seasons of my life where I can be surrounded by people and still feel that same loneliness and hunger for connection that I do when I have no one. It causes so much discontentment in my life. Instead learning to run to God, trading your feelings of loneliness for His company. Trading our want for connection, for the deepest relationship we will ever experience in our lives. To be fully loved, fully wanted, fully complete in Him.

3. Learn to cultivate lasting relationships

     There have been many moments I've cried out to God pleading for Him to give me close friendships, a group of encouraging girls that I can always turn to. I had to realize, first off, that people will always disappoint no matter how great of a friend they are. I had been heading into friendships with expectations of how I wanted them to be and then I'll always ended up hurt when they didn't meet them.
     Secondly, I realized I was pleading for God to bring me these friends I so desired when I wasn't even being that kind of friend. "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you..." (Mat 7:12) So how was I to expect those around me to be the encouraging, loving, and deeply connected friends that I wanted if I wasn't also being encouraging, loving, and deeply connected to them? I had to learn to start putting all that effort and time that I had been putting into my social media relationships into the physical girls around me. Cause any relationship takes work. Nothing just happens automatically, and once I started to be the type of friend who I wanted did I find fulfilling friendships.


- Rachel