FOMO Whispers — But JOMO Walks Away
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction, created in the imaginative voice of Weirdolight. Any resemblance to real workplaces, people, or moments of quiet frustration is as deliberate as a star’s sparkle in the night.
***
Hello, weirdos! 🌟
This is the tale of Lucien, and how devotion can get tangled in the threads of collaboration. Of the subtle traps we fall into when care is confused with control. And of the quiet moments when joy means choosing what to leave behind.
Definitions
To set the stage for this story, here are two key ideas we’ll explore:
- FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): The anxious feeling that you’re missing out on rewarding experiences or opportunities—leading to overcommitment, distraction, and stress.
- JOMO (Joy of Missing Out): The peaceful satisfaction of intentionally choosing what matters most to you, embracing focus and freedom by letting go of distractions and unnecessary obligations.
Walk in with care.
That’s how we lost the unicorn 🦄
FOMO Whispers — But JOMO Walks Away
Lucien used to know every corner of this place.
Back when it was still a real startup. Back when the ice cream machine was second-hand and the gym gear was whatever they could get a deal on. The protein shakes tasted like chalk in the old days, but people drank them out of devotion.
Lucien used to feel completely free here.
Not in a “do whatever you want” kind of way, but in the sense that he could devote himself—fully, with intention, without friction—to a cause he believed in. The gym chain had been a scrappy startup once, powered by purpose. They weren’t just about fitness or even their signature high-protein ice cream—they were building something that felt human, meaningful, and alive.
Then they got traction. And investors. And scale.
Now the chain had fifty locations, a solar footprint report, and a signature ice cream menu with seasonal flavors like Charcoal Cherry and Salted Spirulina Swell. The packaging was biodegradable, the fonts were Swiss, and the walls had grown quiet.
Not quiet like peace.
Quiet like compromise.
Everything felt stuck in a performance.
And the lead actor was Elliot.
When Elliot joined the company, he introduced himself with a digital whiteboard. Color-coded frames. Buzzwords in sharp contrast.
Lucien took notes while Elliot ran the kickoff like the keynote of a motivational coach bootcamp. There were diagrams. Rhythms. Cultural anchors.
By the end, Lucien still didn’t know what Elliot actually did.
But over the weeks, he found out.
Elliot wasn’t incompetent. That would have been easier. He was intelligent, sociable, full of enthusiasm for agile methods and team rituals. But underneath the glossy surface was something slippery: he weaponized collaboration as a way to avoid responsibility.
Lucien needed Elliot’s input to move forward. Tasks passed through him. Requirements, feedback, go-aheads. Elliot didn’t set strategy—management did—but Lucien had to pass things on to him. The process was supposed to be collaborative. Efficient. But Lucien would leave each conversation mit Elliot more drained than aligned.
Elliot turned every handover into a comedy routine. Jokes, sidetracks, philosophical musings about the soul of ice cream branding. What should have been a two-minute sync ballooned into twenty, filled with smiles and backpedals. And yet, Elliot constantly complained: “I have too much on my plate. I’m drowning.”
But when Lucien tried to be helpful and moved things forward himself, Elliot would push back:
“That’s my area. Feels like you’re stepping on my toes, like you don’t trust me to do my job.
“Lucien blinked. “You said you were overloaded.”
“Yes, but I’m still responsible.”
“So… do you want help or not?”
“I want us to collaborate better.”
What Elliot meant was: I want to be seen as important. But I don’t want to be responsible for the result, in case something might go wrong, in case I don’t feel like doing it at all anymore.
Lucien tried to understand, but eventually a pattern emerged: Elliot didn’t want to be seen as replaceable. He wanted to be the voice in every room, the one who had too much on his plate because that’s how “important” people sound. And so he created chaos, just enough of it, so he’d stay necessary.
But the cost was clarity. And momentum. And trust.
This tension sat like a boulder on Lucien’s back.
He tried to stay focused on the work—the bigger picture. They were creating something cool: a gym experience that combined movement, nutrition, sustainability, and style. The brand had heart. He wanted to devote himself to it. To make it better. Cleaner. Sharper.
But Elliot made it impossible.
Lucien couldn’t do his job without babysitting someone who kept sabotaging progress in the name of collaboration.
Elliot insisted on voting for every decision. Every flavor name. Even color codes. “That’s the agile way,” he’d say, grinning.
Lucien finally snapped. “Agile isn’t a town hall. It’s about adapting to what works.”
But Elliot wouldn’t budge. “We need to include everyone’s voice.”
Lucien thought, And if everyone is right, then no one’s really leading.
Lucien started to feel trapped.
He couldn’t move fast. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t even care properly without bumping into another delay disguised as diplomacy. His work got stuck. His attention scattered. And worst of all, his devotion—his freedom to care—was being buried beneath processes that served no one but the illusion of importance of the person who should just work on their fragile self worth and ego.
Trapped in cycles of fake consensus, trapped in polite conversations that never got to the point, trapped in working around Elliot to get anything done. It wasn’t the workload that wore him down. It was the fact that he couldn’t fully give himself to the work anymore.
And that’s how we lost him.
Because Lucien believed in devotion.
Not in the old-fashioned sense of sacrifice or blind loyalty—but in the empowering, liberating way: choosing what you care about, and then giving yourself permission to go all in. Devotion is freedom—not its opposite. Freedom isn’t having all options all the time. It’s knowing what matters most and having the space to pursue it without apology.
But Elliot had turned every moment into a subtle FOMO trap:
- “Let’s open it up to the team to vote.”
- “Let’s not decide yet.”
- “Let’s keep things flexible.”
It sounded inclusive, agile, free. But it was just avoidance dressed in collaboration.
The problem wasn’t that Lucien wanted too much control. It was that he couldn’t even move forward without justifying every step to someone who was more interested in being perceived as a contributor than actually contributing.
Elliot’s behavior whispered a constant FOMO into the team:
“What if we miss something? What if it turns out to be too much work in the future? What if we act too fast? What if we make the wrong decision? What if I’m not included in the decision-making?“
But to Lucien, it was clear: that kind of fear creates paralysis. Devotion, in contrast, requires saying no to distractions. It means missing out on everything that doesn’t matter, so you can give yourself fully to what does.
That’s JOMO. The Joy of Missing Out.
And then, like a quiet click, something shifted.
Juniper came back.
They walked into the office like a soft echo of another time. Still wrapped in their signature scarf. Still walking like every step had its own rhythm.
Lucien blinked in disbelief. “You?”
They nodded. “You too?”
“Yeah. For now.”
They sat together during lunch that day. Talked about everything and nothing. And when Juniper finally asked, “How is it really?”—Lucien exhaled like a cracked pipe.
“It’s a maze,” he said. “I can’t do what I came here to do. Every time I try to move, I run into Elliot. If I don’t help, he delays things. If I do help, he sulks. It’s like having a colleague who wants the title, the sympathy, and the spotlight—but not the responsibility.”
Juniper just nodded.
“Sometimes,” Lucien continued, “I think he’s scared people will realize how fast I could do his job. But he slows it down to protect his role. And in doing so, he’s killing the very thing I came here to build.”
Juniper stared at the melting scoop of Ginger Citrus Glow in their bowl.
“Sounds like your devotion’s being smothered by someone else’s fear.”
Lucien whispered, “Exactly.”
The day Lucien left, he didn’t announce it.
He slipped a note into the team area.
It read:
You can’t be free if you’re scared to care.
You can’t be devoted if you’re afraid of missing out.
True freedom isn’t keeping every door open — it’s walking boldly through one and closing the rest.
FOMO whispers — but JOMO just walks away.
No one saw him go.
But Juniper found the note. They read it twice.
Someone asked, “Why did he leave?”
Juniper thought about it, then replied:
“He didn’t leave us.
He just stopped waiting for us to catch up.”
What’s this story really about?
It might seem like a workplace drama about meetings, ice cream, and hidden tensions.
But listen closely: it’s a meditation on freedom—the kind that comes not from endless options, but from the courage to say no. On devotion—not as sacrifice, but as a choice to give your whole self to what matters.
It’s about the cost of noise disguised as collaboration, and the peace found in walking away from the FOMO whispering in our ears.
And just maybe, it’s about reclaiming that space where passion and freedom can breathe again—where the joy of missing out is the gateway to what truly lights us up.
What did you find between the lines?
🖤
~ Weirdolight
