FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a term often used by the young. This fear is produced thanks to the multitude to opportunities the privileged young have at their fingertips. But you can’t “have it all” despite Cosmopolitan Editor Helen Gurley Brown’s insistence that you can.

I found it hard to empathize with those who lamented the experience of FOMO until today. Because today I was sitting innocently enough sipping orange juice and enjoying an English muffin in my local diner when I struck up a casual conversation with a man who was sitting at the adjacent booth. I had no reading material so I thought a friendly conversation would be a good way to pass the time.

I remarked that so many had experienced fear of COVID that we had all become anti-social. This seemed to peak my new breakfast partner’s interest and he said he was worried that he was exposed to germs on his long flight back from Capri the day before. I asked him whether his trip was for business or pleasure and he told me he had been in London to attend the Royal Ascot Races and then his friend flew him to Capri, where they went cruising along the Amalfi coast. Lots of good food, fine wine, jet skiing, tanning, fishing, that sort of thing.

Suddenly I knew what FOMO was. I, too, would have liked to have seen the Royal Ascot races and I, too, would have liked to have a yacht take me island hopping along the Amalfi coast. I was deep into FOMO for the first time in my life. I suddenly realized that I was missing out on all the fun.

Then it occurred to me that even if I did go to Royal Ascot and even if I did spend a week on a yacht, there was no guarantee that I would actually enjoy any of it. I remember taking a trip to Paris eight years ago and returning with the lament that I had missed out on seeing the Eiffel Tower.

I was extravagantly entertained on that trip with a round at the uber-exclusive Golf de Saint Cloud, dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, a tour through the Tuileries Gardens and much more, but since I did not get to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal I had regrets that I missed out on something. I had FOMO.

Or how about the time we stayed at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice, which is a hotel so so beautiful you want to cry. But because we took a private boat tour of Venice rather than a more “fun” bus boat tour I kept thinking we missed out.

It’s a strange thing to feel that one is missing out on so much fun. Whether you find yourself among the privileged young, those in a midlife crisis or happen to be a jaded oldster, we all have trouble actually appreciating the life we live. We humans have difficulty pausing in order to appreciate what we have before us. I think we should get rid of the phrase FOMO and replace it with AFTA, or “A Failure to Appreciate”.

One of my professors in graduate school would always say that people exclaimed how marvelous their vacations were only as a way of denying the fact that they may have found most of it painful and boring. How can one admit that fact after you spent $12,000 on something you actually did not appreciate?

Careful reading of great literature suggests that the failure to appreciate life is common and remains unsolved. Goethe’s “Faust” (1808) is about a depressed man man who is in a frustrated quest to find the essence of life and resorts to making a pact with the devil by selling his soul in order to find some pleasure.

The quest for the Holy Grail is one of the most enduring themes in Western culture and it is about man’s frustrated quest to find everlasting joy. One of the first and most important attempts to tackle this subject was written by Chretian de Troyes in “Perceval, the Story of the Grail” (1180). The quest for the answer to life’s pain, boredom and frustrations has haunted men for thousands of years with the most current efforts given to us by Steven Spielberg in his “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”

One of my favorite efforts to solve our “Fear of Missing Out” is seen in “The Glass Bead Game” (Magister Ludi) by Herman Hesse. This charming German classic is about a future world where the intellectual elites are cloistered away in a small town in the Swiss Alps and spend their lives trying to win a game they play among themselves involving a combination of music, mathematics, and art. It’s a magical novel to read, but the best that the supreme master of the game can do is to look up at the stars each night and try to find comfort up there.

We all suffer some “Fear of Missing Out,” but for my money I like the moniker AFTA, or “A Failure to Appreciate,” more because when one looks at life that way, it prompts you to slow down, look around, and try to appreciate what you already have. America suffers from a wealth of goods, services and abundance. It’s a place where the more you have the more you want to have and that leads you right into the manic attitude of FOMO.

“A Failure To Appreciate” is a better way to think of this issue. When you begin to realize that what you are missing is the ability to enjoy life’s little pleasures, then you are on your way to having a truly wise philosophy of life. It’s summertime and the living is easy. It’s time to slow down, take a deep breath, relax, smile and appreciate the wonderful world we have been blessed with.

Long Island may not have the Royal Ascot races and it may not be Capri, but there is plenty of adventure and beauty right in your own backyard. All you have to do is find it.