Fuck off FOMO: Why saying "no" will enrich your life outside of the rave

If you live life deep in the rave, weekends are a fucking minefield. It's really quite astonishing just how many world class nights are put on in cities like New York, London, Berlin, Manchester and Amsterdam. There's so much to do, so many DJs to see, how are you supposed to choose what you want to really go in on.

Here comes the problem for me and 99 per cent of people I know in the scene: we don't choose or handpick our nights out, we go to all of them. We hit as many as possible every week and most of the time it's multiple parties over Friday and Saturday. On the surface, why the fuck wouldn't we? Countless international (and, of course, local) DJs are playing on our doorstep and it's the best time of our lives to experience this sort of music. However, it's not always all that it's cracked up to be.

I'm fully aware that this is a very fortunate situation to find myself in: internally torn about which amazing night to go to is a good problem to have but that isn't to say that it's healthy. A moral dilemma is one thing to address but a genuine health concern is another. It's very easy to get sucked in and that's the real issue here, which brings me onto my main point.

The art of saying "no" is something that can take years of mastering. To be able to turn down a party you know will be amazing, to not spend that quality time with your friends, is no easy task. In fact, it's one of the hardest things in the world. We've got the gut-wrenching feeling of FOMO to thank for that.