HGFA Skysailor Magazine

30 SKY SAILOR January | February 2019 S o, you open Facebook once again, and yes, once again, see your flying mates bragging how ‘epic’ their flight was yesterday, while you were at work. With pictures of gorgeous scenery from the air, sunsets and happy emojis. And once again, you’re hit with that minuscule sinking feeling that you’ve missed out. There it is, that conflicting feeling of unhappiness, and yet you feel obligated to ‘Like’ the post, after all, they are your friends and you’re happy for them. Aren’t you? The fact is, however, you’ve missed out and it’s dredged up a feeling of being unhappy. But that’s okay, because the next time you fly, you’re going to do the same. This article is about how to be in control of the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ (FOMO) and flying. It’s not a mystery that we only ever read about the ‘epic’ flights on Facebook. No one posts about the two hours sitting on the hill for what turned out to be a four-minute sleddie. No one brags about bombing out and having to walk up with 16kg on their back in the searing sun, sweating and covered in cobbler’s pegs and ticks. No one brags about waiting all day for the wind to pick up, only for it to eventually come over the back. And no one ever posts about those times the air was as rough as heck and everyone was crapping themselves. When we log on, all we see in our feed are the epic flights. Studies by Dr. John M. Grohol, Psy.D. an expert and researcher in Mental Health online, and founder of PsychCentral, show that much of what we do on social media is exaggerated to make our lives seem a lot better, and frankly more fun than they really are, often to a point that our posts are more of a reflection of how good we want our experiences to be perceived by both others and ourselves, rather than what really happened, how we really felt, and what we really experienced. The problem with this is two-fold. First, we often find we’re comparing our own experiences to the exaggerated experiences and lives of others. Second, we do the same back. Trying to The Elephant in the Sky There was a time when we used to try and work out how many times we’d check our Facebook feed over the course of any day, but most of us don’t do that anymore. There’s no point. We’ve succumbed to the fact that whatever black magic these social media giants use on us to keep checking back throughout the day, it has worked and it’s here to stay. When you no longer realise you’re reaching for your phone and clicking the Facebook icon, then you well and truly know that it’s become a hard-to-beat habit. by Drew Salem