Originally written in Traditional Chinese: 不 FOMO，不是少參加。是先決定，要認識誰
My take: avoiding FOMO is not about attending less. It is about deciding, before you walk in, who you most need to meet.
Today is day one of my Minerva Immersion Week in Tokyo. The first item on the schedule is a dinner with the whole cohort: one long table, one week, classmates flying in from across Asia.
Some context. Minerva undergraduates live in several countries over four years. Graduate students do not, so Minerva created Immersion Weeks: one week in one city, learning face to face. For master's students there are three cities: London, Seoul and Tokyo. I have done London and Seoul. Tokyo completes the set.
Before the trip, Minerva sent every participant a short deck. One slide per person, three things on it: your background, the kind of people you hope to meet, and what you want to accomplish on this trip. It takes very little time to read, and by the end you already know whose seat you want to be near at dinner. The real power of that deck is not the information. It forces everyone to answer one question first: why am I here?
My own plan is simple. Two classmates are only joining for the first two days. I have seven days with everyone else and two days with them, so they are the people I prioritize this weekend. That is not favoritism. It is opportunity cost.
To be clear, this is not about treating people like KPIs. You cannot go deep with 200 people. You can only choose. Not choosing is not kinder. It just hands the choice to chance, and you spend the evening worrying about the next table while never really meeting the person across from you.
The same is true of AI. Every week brings a new tool and a new "must learn." If you fear missing all of them, you keep switching and never build any of them into your actual work. Not having FOMO does not mean ignoring everything. It means knowing where you are going, then choosing which people and which tools come with you.
Try this tonight: write three lines. The one thing you most want to accomplish this month. The three people who could help you get there. What you could offer them first.
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