Week 9: "If This Is It"
Time Runs Out
The Fear of Missing Out, usually written in shorthand as FOMO(which is frankly also a lot more fun to say out loud), is a feeling we’ve all experienced at one point or another. Moment to moment, we become so focused on the present that the future drifts completely out of sight, right up until the point that it swings back towards us and *WHAM* you realize how much time has actually passed. There have been a couple of moments like this in my life, such as the end of high school and college, and each time it finally caught up to me, it created a visceral reaction. Where once there were infinite possibilities and all the time in the world to fit them in, now there is one giant void where all that everything used to be. Shortly afterwards, regret floods in and turns the hole into a reservoir. Given enough time, it's eventually replaced by acceptance and the enjoyment of everything you were able to do, but that initial negative sensation has a real knack for lingering in your mind long after it first appeared.
Which, in my opinion, is why it makes for such a great marketing tactic. “BUY IT BEFORE IT’S GONE!” plays on a person’s real regrets, missed opportunities, etc. The buying of whatever tchotchke or doodad is done to avoid that negative sensation rather than to create a positive one. This has led to FOMO getting a real bad rap among most people. The term invites the idea of cheap gimmick marketing, scummy tactics, and other general annoyances. However, I think this is pretty unfair to FOMO; it never wanted to be the modern equivalent of a guy in a musty chicken mascot suit spinning a sign outside of some cut-rate fast-food place. A bit of pressure isn’t inherently bad. Heck, it can be a great motivator, but it's how we react to it that defines the role it plays in our lives. With only 2 weeks left in China, I was starting to really wrestle with this feeling and trying to figure out how it could enhance my experience rather than drag it down.
Realistically, I think the chance that I get to visit China again is pretty low, not out of a lack of desire, but any future where I can actually afford to make the trip is probably at least a decade out, minimum. So if I want to see anything, I need to see it now. That was my thought process a couple of weeks ago, after Alex pointed out how many weekends we actually had left, and it finally started to sink in. So I did the natural thing and wrote a bucket list. 10 days to knock out roughly 10 items. Over the next few weekends, I slowly but surely knocked ‘em out until only about 5 of them remained.
There were three in particular that I turned my focus to; I had this idea of making one of the blogs about “Logan’s Must-See Top Threes.” Three types of places you should visit regardless of where you go in the world, because by going to them, you could compare and contrast how common elements are viewed through different cultural lenses. So what were these three? Museums, Zoos, and Aquariums. So I went to Beijing’s Natural History Museum and the Beijing Zoo/Aquarium. First, let me state that going to these places and seeing everything they had was great; it was really cool to see those differences, but obviously, I’m not writing about it now. Why? Well, the Natural History Museum and Aquarium were a bit smaller than I expected. I had planned on these being full-day excursions, but they were more like places you’d be in and out of within 3-ish hours if you were really taking your time. That’s on its own isn’t a bad thing, but in China, if you want to do most of the “big things,” you need to buy tickets in advance, meaning that I couldn’t exactly just go and do something else beyond visiting some admittedly very beautiful parks and markets.
This feeling really sank in on the day I went to the Museum. It was roughly 1 or 2 pm in the afternoon when I stepped out of the Natural History Museum into the sun-soaked street, and as that wave of heat hit me, one thought came to mind, “Man, I could really go for a bite to eat.” I noticed there were a couple of restaurants across the street, so I headed over to them, and as I was walking over, I couldn’t help but notice the extremely distinct architecture surrounding this grand building that the restaurants were attached to. As I was sort of walking around, munching on my sandwich, I read the unmistakable words “PERFORMING ARTS CENTER.” I stared at the posters below, various very interesting-looking plays, and my inner theatre geek started kicking myself. If I had done more research, I could have scheduled this day far better, bought a ticket, and then once I was done at the museum, I could have seen something truly incredible.
Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I felt this slight feeling of discontent begin to bubble up, that the time I had left was being poorly spent. As I left the Aquarium the next day, that feeling returned. It was another absolute scorcher of a day, so the majority of the animals at the Zoo had decided to retreat to shaded corners and hidden interiors to beat the heat. This meant I wasn’t really seeing much of anything, and hadn’t I already done the zoo thing a couple of weeks ago? Why had I planned a whole day around it now? Well, the real reason beyond whatever excuse I had conjured up was that I felt like it would be pretty weird to spend three months in China and not see a panda(Reasoning was a bit silly, admittedly). After walking through what is undoubtedly the most beautiful zoo I’ve ever been to (I mean, seriously, talk about scenic). I finally arrived at the panda enclosure. I went in, saw the pandas, thought “Wow, that’s pretty neat,” and then promptly left. 
At this point, the zoo was close to closing time, so I wandered around a little bit more, passing by closed-off buildings, and other things that, once again, had I spent my time more wisely, I would have been able to see and probably would have really enjoyed. That initial simmering feeling was quickly turning into a full broil, and it continued to rise during the beginning of my next excursion to the Summer Palace(the new one). It was early in the morning, and the opening area was packed. I’ve gotten pretty used to crowds while in China, but this was a new high watermark. Hundreds of people pushed through vices masquerading as corridors, walls moving inwards, squeezing, closing, and amplifying the pressure that was now frothing over in my mind.
As my anxiety peaked, one thought became clear in my mind: I was just going through the motions. I started to believe that everything I had been doing these past few days was just to check off boxes on a list, collecting experiences just to say that I had done them, to write about them, and thus that I had not spent any of my very limited time well. Was this really going to be the feeling I was stuck with in these final days? Did I really manage to screw up a once-in-a-lifetime experience? But then, the corridors opened up, the walls sank into the ground, the crowds dispersed, and a quiet forest on a hill rose up around me. I was able to get some distance and clear my head. As I ascended, I started really taking in my surroundings, and I realized that this wasn’t a hill, it was a mountain, and I was hiking up it. Step by step, I climbed. It was exhausting, but the sense of excitement and discovery that was returning to me made any strain I was experiencing trivial. I had no clue where this effort would lead me, but eventually I reached the summit and was rewarded with this view:
It reminded me exactly why I’ve loved these past three months so much. The joy, the passion, and frankly, the fun of adventure. The rare chance to be physically driven by your personal curiosity, to see something and then decide, “I’m going there.” To see beautiful sights, experience new things, and get out of my comfort zone. I spent the rest of that day winding up and down the mountain past the beautiful lakefront until eventually I looped back to where I had come in. It gave me a chance to really think about how, in my own head I had been about everything these past few days. I didn’t go to those places out of obligation; I went there because I loved museums, zoos, and aquariums, and getting a chance to see more of them was a blast. They were days well spent. I had gotten so focused on the destination, on some imagined intangible outcome, that I only thought about everything I wasn’t doing rather than everything that I had done. 
When I think back on the moments I’ve loved the most on this trip, it's the ones that were very spontaneous. Things I would have never done or experienced had I not had this sort of looming deadline and real pressure to take those leaps. Sure, at times, not everything went to plan, but even when it didn’t, it was still incredible. That deadline wasn’t a barrier; it was an incentive to give things a try. With this weight off my shoulders, I was able to just enjoy the moment. So how was I going to spend my last little bit of free time before leaving? By doing something that I had really wanted to do, but had fallen way down the priority list. I was going to Universal Studios Beijing. Among the many things I really love, theme parks are one of them, so I wasn’t going to miss this chance to see what one looked like halfway across the world. There really isn’t much to write about beyond that. I spent my day riding rides, eating junk food, and just generally having a great time.
…And Done
As for the research paper I’ve been writing, it's finally finished. I’ve got to say I am very proud of it. This summer provided a really great opportunity to flex both my research and writing muscles in a professional setting(which is nice because otherwise my Poli-Sci degree is basically just gathering dust on a shelf). I’ve already written extensively about the research itself, so I’ll spare you all a recap. The toughest thing about it really was just narrowing it down and tightening up. Brevity was and is still not my strong suit(as you’ve clearly seen). Figuring out how to present my ideas via just the essentials took a lot of effort. Honestly, I was surprised that a single paper could take up my focus for so long and that the time spent could still feel extremely valuable. Work like this really sparks something within me; it gives me a fire. My passion is put towards something that provides some kind of positive impact on the world at large(as minuscule as that impact may be), which makes it feel extremely fulfilling. Just feeling like I’m contributing my knowledge and voice to ongoing public policy discussions is satisfying.
In hindsight, I probably could have unglued my face from my monitor a little more frequently. My coworkers were great, and I really enjoyed interacting with them. They were extremely kind, always willing to help, and just the little things, like each one of us buying coffee for the group, helped build a sense of camaraderie which I hadn’t experienced in a good while. The reason I haven’t written about it too much is partially because I like to keep this blog focused more on my internal monologue so as not to mischaracterize anyone. However, I’m very much a sort of “Work Brain”/”Off Work Brain” type person. For me to be effective, I need to really dial in on whatever I’m doing, and that in turn means tuning a lot out, which is probably a little too much at times. At the end of the day, though, I suppose it is all about just figuring out how to manage your time in the way you feel is most valuable. For me, that was making sure that the research paper was the best thing I had ever produced; I would have been deeply unhappy with anything less than that, so the majority of my focus went towards it. In the future, I hope that I can keep the quality but maybe maintain a bit more sociability, but we’ll see.
As always, thanks for reading,
Logan Smith
