Fear of missing life: A Study on young adults

Individuals in early adulthood have normative goals that were either previously set by themselves or defined by society. During this stage, individuals make evaluations regarding these goals. They assess themselves from the perspectives of career, relationships, economic conditions, self-definition, outlook on life, and abilities. One of the resources they use in these evaluations is social comparisons. The evaluations individuals make result in different outcomes based on their time perspective perceptions. These outcomes can lead to a variety of positive/negative situations or a range of emotions for individuals. One of these emotions is anxiety. This anxiety, referred to as the fear of missing life, can be described as a sense of being too late to achieve the desired life standards or to reach one or more life areas (career, relationships, etc.). This study aims to explore whether young adults experience the fear of missing out on life and, if they do, to examine the characteristics of this anxiety through individuals' experiences and perceptions. In line with this objective, qualitative research methods were employed, using the phenomenological approach model, and interviews were conducted with 16 participants. The data obtained from these interviews were transcribed and analyzed. It was found that 10 out of the 16 participants experienced a fear of missing life. This emotion, which is influenced by individuals' definitions of adulthood, their sense of feeling adult, their self-identifications, and their outlook on life, emerges as a result of evaluations of life goals (career, relationships, economy, and skills). The common characteristics of individuals who experience the fear of missing life, which they described as "a feeling that constantly chases them, almost gnawing at their insides," were found to include having a past- or future-oriented time perspective and engaging in social comparisons.