The other day, I went to this great flea market.

There are two unbelievable flea markets in Los Angeles. There’s the Rose Bowl, which is wonderful, as long as it’s not above 80 degrees. Then it becomes the Cooking Bowl, like you’re in a non-stick frying pan, being in a confectionary oven, being cooked to death out there with no shade. That’s what the obnoxious southern California sun does. It feels like it’s literally melting your body 24/7.

Some people love it, I fucking hate it.

But this article is not about me hating the California sunshine.

This article is about FOMO.

The other day, we went to this Long Beach flea market. While we were laying in bed, the original plan was to get up and get there by 7:30 in the morning. There was no reason for that at all. Our reasoning was because we heard you get there earlier, you get the best stuff.

What exactly is the best stuff?

Well, I look around, and I look at all the people around me, and I think most people have the worst taste in the world. So, if I’m competing with those people for their bad taste, let them go and take the bad stuff at 7:30 in the morning. Let them have a shitty night’s sleep. Let them set the alarm on a Sunday. Let them get up at 5:00 in the morning, and let them have to go take their morning dump in a port-a-potty.

Not I, said. I will actually get to relax because I will get there once all the people with bad taste get all their stuff, and I will go in take what’s left over, the stuff that they don’t understand, the beautiful things that aren’t going to be in their house, as they put up the dogs playing poker, and they buy the vintage Guess jeans from 2005.

I’m sorry, but Guess jeans are never going to be vintage. They were always throw-away in the first place.

But we have this FOMO thing that goes on.

We need to get there.

It’s fear of missing out (FOMO).

We need to hurry up and buy something. There might be one thing left.

Even websites do that. Ever notice that?

Travelocity will say, only one room left at this price.

Really? Well sorry but I don’t believe that, because there’s always just one room left at this price.

Now, clothing companies will tell you when they put something on sale, only one extra-small left!

Oh my god, you mean you’re telling me that the world wide web and all the millions and millions of people on the Internet right now, nobody’s bought the one thing left, right now as I’m on it?

That’s almost impossible.

You’ve got to realize that the amount of people that are clicking on that right now and obsessing about it and up all hours of the night right now because they can’t fall asleep because they need to get this one thing on the Internet and there’s only one thing left and I happen to be the lucky person to get it.

I love that.

And now, how am I the lucky person to get it? How could I be the luckiest one in the world at 3:00 in the morning because I have stupid insomnia, because I can’t stop thinking about a coffee maker, or I can’t stop thinking about this blouse or this shirt that may not fit me anyway.

That’s what I love about eBay. eBay is a little different.

There is FOMO on eBay because of the “buy it now” thing. I definitely have lost out on some “buy it now” stuff.

But guess what? It’s okay because my life is still great without it.

Have I lost out on some sales? Absolutely.

Are there stores that give you 20% off, and sometimes they give you an additional 10% off, and you think, oh my god, I’m never going to have the additional 10% off ever again, when in reality they’ve been using the additional 10% off for the last 10 years.

All you need to do is have a different e-mail address! Duh.

As for their 20% off sale, that’s not really a huge sale to begin with anyway. They’re going to have it again because we all suffer from FOMO.

We’re a FOMO culture.

So they’ll constantly have 20% off FOMO sales because they’ll constantly have to stimulate and make money because they’re the manufacturer and they actually have huge amounts of profit on there, and even if they put it 50% off, they’re still making a shitload of money.

So you need to realize, okay, that there is no limiting.

The only actual limiting is your limiting beliefs.

If you really believe that this is the last shirt that’s out there in that color, then go ahead, wake yourself up at 3:00 a.m. and buy it.

But me? If it was the actual last shirt, it means I can go find another one, and it doesn’t matter because I don’t have a fear of missing out on really anything.

Any time I feel the FOMO, I get stuck in something I did not want.

I get stuck in an investment I did not want. And then I have to wait for the market to get back up to where I am, and I have to waste my five months of money waiting for the market to climb back up because I had a stupid, impulsive FOMO moment.

So the next time you’re tossing and turning, you have insomnia because one of your favorite websites is having a sale and you just think that this might be the last sofa in the whole wide world, go back to sleep and do something constructive.

Go to sleep, relax, and take a look at the Good Year blimp that’s deflating on the side of the highway. Because that, to me, is more exciting, and you’ll miss those moments while you’re stuck in FOMO.