FOMO vs FONBP

We mostly know about FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), but I think the Fear of Not Being Prepared (FONBP) should be what we need to be focused on and be afraid of! Missing out on something can be ok, but not being prepared can be costly and more!

The term FOMO has been popularized because since the pandemic, cryptocurrency and growth speculative stocks were very popular and many people on social media were sharing their stories of getting rich betting/investing in those stocks. So much so that many online brokerage companies like Robinhood were growing by record numbers. Many 18-25 years-old who have never invested before nor have any experience in stocks participated in investing their pandemic relief money and savings into those stocks. Those who got lucky with returns and exited on time, can be said to be lucky. However, when the market turned at the beginning of 2022, many people were hurt as the speculative stocks and cryptocurrencies prices crashed.

Looking back, some may say that it was because people had the FOMO into the market were getting pulled in by the hype about how it was so easy to make money in such a short amount of time. I argue that it’s more than that. It was because people were not emotionally and financially ready for the fast changes happening in our economy due to the pandemic. It’s clear that many people may lack some knowledge, education and experience of handling their finances, let alone the financial setbacks due the changes to our economy. Another way of putting it, they were simply not prepared for such market challenges and opportunities, so they didn’t know how to handle themselves nor their finances to understand market/investment risks.

The event of the pandemic is also a wake-up call for us to invest more time to better understand personal finance. We need to proactively take responsibility for our finances and decisions. We need to also think of long-term goals, to be more prepared and get more access to financial resources so we can be empowered to think clearly for ourselves, our family, and our future. We should not be persuaded and be sold false ideas of easy opportunity to be rich and fall for ideas of financial success that does not match our values.

Learn more about the topics of personal finance, be more prepared, and when challenges/opportunities present themselves, you're able to be better off rather than to be worse of. Remember, fortunes and wealth always favor the prepared, not those who react and blindly follow the masses with no critical thinking.