Living on the Edge: How Heidegger’s View of Death Frees Us from #FOMO

Slavery was officially banned in India in 1843, in the UK in 1833, and in the US in 1865. Yet, a new form of slavery has quietly taken its place—one we often fail to recognize. Are we not, in many ways, slaves to social media and fleeting trends?

Each day, we wake up to chase a train we can never quite catch, and each day, we miss it. This endless cycle of trying to keep up feels suffocating. Even when I tell myself that I don’t care about these things, there’s always a nagging thought at the back of my mind. 

Somewhere, I’m bothered that I haven’t been to that aesthetic café my friend posted about. I’m frustrated that I don’t know all the latest shows or viral memes my peers talk about with such ease and confidence. And there’s that sinking feeling in class when I realize that, despite making notes, I don’t fully grasp the depth of the subjects the way I wish I could.

It feels like life is one enormous, unrelenting plan—almost too big to comprehend. I can’t help but think we’re all participants in this race, one where the finish line keeps shifting further. No matter how much I try to distance myself from these expectations, I’m still tethered to them. At the end of the day, it feels like we're missing out on something bigger, but maybe what we’re really missing is a sense of contentment with where we are.

This blog invites you to pause for a moment and reflect on a concept introduced by the renowned German philosopher, Martin Heidegger and how his major work “Being towards death” can fix your #FOMO crisis.

Living on Borrowed Time:  How Heidegger’s ‘Being-Toward-Death’ Helps Us Focus on What Matters

In life, we do not know or can not quite predict where we will end up or what we are going to become. Yet, one truth looms over all of us—the inescapable reality that, no matter what we do, we will reach an end. The funny and tragic part is that this end is not necessarily after an infinitely long period of time. This thought sends shivers down our spines, doesn’t it? 

We flinch from even mentioning it, as if saying it out loud might summon the universe’s attention toward our own final moments. We distract ourselves with plans, achievements, and day-to-day chaos, hoping we can outrun this inevitable truth.

Amidst this shared human anxiety, Martin Heidegger, a 20th-century German philosopher, dared to confront the very thing we avoid—death itself. He delved into the profound questions of existence, not to deepen our fear but to help us live more authentically. One of his core ideas, “Being-Toward-Death,” might sound grim, but it’s far from it. 

When we truly face the fact that our time here is finite, every moment starts to matter a little more, helping us focus on what really counts—our connections, passions, and purpose. 

But before hopping on to deeply comprehend this philosophical conception, I would like to provide you with some crisp definitions of a few jargons you might come across further, in order to truly understand the concept. Here we go:

(a) Dasein: (German: to be there) It refers to a determinant being. In “Being and Time,” he explores the idea of Dasein — being-there as an entity that is always in a world with meaning around it. 

(b) Being at an end and being towards the end

• Being-at-an-end: The idea of a final stopping point or conclusion, as if life simply ends like an object running out of use.

•  Being-towards-the-end: The understanding that life is constantly shaped by the awareness of death, influencing how we live.

(c) Ownmost, non-relational, and not-to-be-outstripped

• Ownmost: Death is a personal experience. No one experiences it on anyone’s behalf.

• Non-relational: Death is non-relational for it strips a man of all relations.

• Not to be outstripped: Death is impending in nature and can, in no way, be outstripped or avoided.

(d) They-self vs. authentic self

• They-self: The everyday self shaped by social norms and public opinion, which avoids facing death’s true significance by seeing it as a distant event.

• Authentic self: The true self that confronts death personally and sees it as a unique, defining part of existence.

(d) Freedom towards death: The ability to fully accept mortality and live authentically, free from society’s distractions and illusions.

Heidegger’s Vision of Death As A Guidebook To Life

To make more sense of the above sub-heading, I would quote Martin’s analogy of an unripe fruit to explain death as a way of life: 

Heidegger parallels life to the ripening of a fruit: just as unripeness is the fruit’s first state, life is Dasein's starting point. Ripeness is to fruit what death is to human existence. As the fruit naturally ripens, Dasein moves naturally towards death.

Death isn’t an external event but an integral part of being. For man, being alive is already to be “not-yet” dead. After all, in the witness stand of history, death gives the biggest testament of life. Generally in life, each one of us experiences the “fear of missing out” or “FOMO” that makes our feet rush to catch all such trains that, in no way that we ponder, shall be caught or not, in the first instance. 

In these days where we get glimpses of others’ lives in a blink of an eye, it’s obvious that we do feel like that. But what are we really fearing to miss out on? Fun? Life altogether? And we continue to dread while keeping life to be lived authentically, on hold. The solution to it is simple and one might say try journaling, or go for a digital detox, but understanding that we fear to miss out only because we are aware of, and are indubitably afraid of our numbered days here on earth, is crucial.

In the end, the choice is ours. Do we live in the shadow of fear, chasing after fleeting moments in a race against time? Or do we stand back, fully embrace life, and recognize that the fullness of our existence doesn’t come from the things we chase, but from the depth with which we experience each moment? Life is already rushing forward, and death isn’t a final punctuation but a reminder to live consciously, authentically, and with purpose.