The Wild Beast named FOMO

I feel that this is one of the best time if not the closest to, that I could write about the phenomenon in crypto we call FOMO. Acronym for Fear of Missing out. It's essentially that unsettling sensation we get when we think others are having more enjoyable experiences or grabbing better opportunities than we are. This feeling in your gut tends to be exacerbated by social media, where everyone showcases their successful trades, especially when it involves shitcoins and memecoins.

You could find this type of post in central exchanges like Binance where they post other people's successful trades in the attempt to pump the market with euphoria, making the "poster" trades become more profitable. If I don't know any better, that is what we often call manipulation. As a result, those who stumble upon this post are buttered up with the sense of urgency to buy with the hopes that they could make that same 100,000% profit trade. lol.


Those that are infected by FOMO will find themselves glued to the crypto social media and events. While impulsively jumping into the investment, not caring enough to check if they are actually buying the top. Those who looked from the outside knew that these people are fomo-ing but failed to see why. The infection spread as subtle as possible until it hits the person. While those who FOMOed, made another post to make other's FOMO. Round and round we go. The cycle of euphoria, that make the bull market. Well, a type of bull market that get plunged at the top. In charts you will usually see this as a straight green line up in the shortest period. Followed by a long red line downwards after. Time and time again people failed to see this.


I came across a person who posted that he/she bought BONK with his/her all lifesavings!! WHY? FOMO. What I know for sure through that post, he/she regretted it and were asking what to do next if he/she should hold that investment. That is sad. But what is even more sad than that is that he/she is not the only one who got infected in fact FOMO gets the best of us.

In hindsight, FOMO is not something to be laughing at when you consider the bad things it could potentially bring and caused the investors. FOMO often leads to anxiety and stress as individuals worry about missing out on experiences, events, or social gatherings. This constant fear can affect mental well-being and contribute to heightened levels of stress. In my own experience, FOMO usually leads to the feeling of anxiety and stress as I worry about missing on the current events or any other social gathering. I could feel that the constant fear affected my mental health and increase my stress level. Honestly, there are times where I couldn't sleep well fearing that I would miss the opportunity window of buying and selling. Those restless nights adds on the stress level I am having.


With the high level of stress, I would too treat people around me poorly especially my own family and friends. Treating them as the enemy of my focus. As I learn to control my own discipline over the years, I began to understand that no matter how much money I have, the most important things in life involved people. Nay, people whom you love, and loves you. When FOMO gets to you, you tend to seclude yourself from building good relationships, as the relationships you build tend to be on the screen of your smartphones and PC.

While FOMO promotes impulsive behavior, people tend to go into doing something that out of ordinary. Just to get quick fix to the feeling of FOMO. This often results in poor decision making that leads to regret down the road. Like our friend with his/her life savings to BONK. It may be a good investment in the long run. But I dare say not to risk your livelihood on the "MAYBE". That's gambling. What comes next is you will start to compare yourselves to other people. Saying to yourselves that "That could be me in the future". More often than not, most of those people who have said that, regretted their decision. When that happen, you will start to compare yourselves in terms of financial success, and you feel small, incompetent and beaten. Not a good place to be if you are trying to grow as an investor and a person.


Personally for me, what's truly bad about the feeling of FOMO is that you have to face the consequences of your impulsive actions. Because you care so much about the feeling you had for not missing out on anything, you took so much time scrolling through the social media to get biased confirmation that you probably did the right thing with your life savings. If you have to double guessed your own action, you are right. You may lose your entire life savings, and will lead to other unpleasant experience with the people you love. But worst you may start to think you are better of without doing any investment. Thus taking you away from the most important thing in investing. Learning through mistakes.


I learnt the hard way that FOMO could distort your reality. What seems to be an innocent investment of 10 dollar in the beginning, could quickly turn into a disaster of 10,000.00 dollar worth of loans into shitcoins that promises you return on your investment. I've never been that stupid, thank god. But I've seen a lot of them in the market, even today. Those who are laughing are the ones who promoted you those tokens in the first place, whom had promised you wild returns.

Be careful out there, be aware that honing your discipline in investing would serve you a very long time towards true success.