I read a post from another blogger this morning on what he referred to as the fear of missing out. It seemed to me to be the antithesis of leisure. The post referred readers to another post by a mental health professional of some sort on how this fear of missing out on something more entertaining or interesting is bleeding into many personal relationships and how technology, whether it be the call waiting of 25 years ago or the twitter feeds of today, perpetuate this fear. A right relationship with the concept of leisure might be a decent tonic for such an affliction. But, in the United States, we often speak of the pursuit of happiness, but not its achievement. It is ingrained in our founding documents. The fear of missing out would seem to be the pursuit of happiness taken to an unhealthy, but possibly not unexpected, extreme.
