‘Because you’re worth it’, proclaims the classic cosmetics ad. ‘Just do it!’ implores the world-famous sporting goods company. At every turn, we are spurred on to experience as much as possible, for as long as possible, in as many contexts as possible. Thankfully, we are under no compulsion to actually comply, but there is no doubt that these slogans reflect a culture that has long cultivated the idea of ‘as much as possible, as quickly as possible’. And why not? Why hold back when we have the choice? For reasons of time and money? On the cusp of the 1990s, the rock group Queen sang ‘I want it all, and I want it now’, a eulogy to wanting more that has served as a leitmotif in modern culture ever since.

Life is short – tragically so, in Freddie Mercury’s case – so we have to see, do and experience as much as possible now, before it is too late. No compromise! Or so many people think. ‘Having it all’ has become an ideal, and we must all rush around seizing the day. Carpe diem is one of the most common tattoos, and the acronym YOLO (You Only Live Once) is in widespread (mis)use on social media. We tell each other that it is preferable to do something we might regret than to regret not doing it. Missing out on something is the worst-case scenario. We live with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – another popular acronym – and are forever checking our phones for status updates, football scores, special deals or whatever happens to be our cup of tea. But doing it all is not easy, and so we need help. On Amazon, a search for ‘get more done’ comes up with more than 2,000 books, e.g. Get More Done in Less Time – And Get On With the Good Stuff. A simpler search on ‘do more’ comes up with more than 13,000 hits, from Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity to Do More in Less Time: How You Can Achieve Your Goals and Live a Balanced Life. What you will not find are many books about doing less – let alone how to do less and take longer over it. But in a stressful age, is that not perhaps exactly what we need to learn?

The question is how to maintain focus in a world full of choice and temptation. We are constantly bombarded with invitations, in the broadest sense of the word, via everything from street advertising to social media. We are constantly invited to do something, think something, experience something, buy something, consume something. Competition for our attention spans is fierce, and when inundated by overwhelming amounts of information it is sometimes difficult to distinguish what is important from what is not. We try to ‘surf the net’ (as they said in the 1990s), this humungous wave of information, but often end up wiping out and struggling to keep our heads above water. Much of our life is now spent training ourselves, in one way or another, to experience as much as possible. We are tempted by quick loans, special offers and just one more episode of our favourite TV series, courtesy of on-demand streaming services. As a species, we have created a society with a cultural landscape, an ecological niche, based on invitations, temptations, choices and special offers, but we rarely practise the art of self-restraint, of saying no and opting out – those are skills we lack both as individuals and as a society. This book recommends making a virtue of necessity and practising the art of missing out.

Learning these skills has become a necessity because for so long our lives have been based on overconsumption, untrammelled growth and whittling away at our natural resources. That is the theme of the next chapter. We can and should discuss the precise details of the crises that humanity has provoked, and which frame our existence, but it is a matter of documented, scientific fact that these self-inflicted crises do exist, and that is one of the foundations on which this book is based. The virtue to which necessity must and will lead us is not some hippy-dippy eco-utopia, but one of the main pillars in a philosophical tradition stretching back to ancient Greece, when moderation was considered an essential character trait. In those days, moderation (sophrosyne in Greek) was often heralded as one of the cardinal virtues – in other words, a necessary component of any kind of ethical activity. According to the ancient Greeks, it is only possible to embody other virtues, such as courage and generosity, if we exercise moderation in everything we do – if we master the art of missing out. If we ‘want it all’, then being good at something specific, including in the ethical sense, will elude us. According to this way of thinking, living a full, rich and flourishing life requires a degree of self-mastery and self-control – not as a form of masochistic self-flagellation or as an ascetic or anorexic project, in which saying no has a value per se, but as a prerequisite for our ability to do our best, as the individuals we happen to be, with the responsibilities we happen to have, in the contexts we happen to find ourselves.

When modern psychology discusses moderation and temperance, it is usually in the context of exercising self-control. While such approaches are significant, in this book the psychological aspect of missing out on something is considered to be only one of several relevant dimensions. I have identified five of them and present them here as overarching arguments in the five chapters to follow.

I start with a chapter on the political argument, which is all about our collective life, and outlines the basic justification for learning to make do. The planet has limited resources but its population continues to grow, and recent decades have seen an upsurge in inequality in many countries. If we want life to be sustainable for the maximum possible number of people – ideally, for all of us – then we need to learn the art of self-restraint, especially here in the richest part of the world.

Next, I introduce the existential argument. In Søren Kierkegaard’s somewhat pompous turn of phrase, opting out and maintaining focus are all about being pure of heart: ‘Purity of heart is to will one thing.’ Existential reflection must entail an acknowledgement that we should not want it all (as the poet Piet Hein suggested); rather, we must pay attention to something specific in order for our lives to be lived well and not just be some kind of amorphous blur.

I then proceed to the ethical argument, which is about our relationship to others, the basic idea being that we are only able to live up to our obligations as human beings if we are willing to miss out on something in order to be there for other, specific, people. It is here in particular that the classic idea of virtue becomes relevant, with its concept of moderation (sophrosyne) as a key component of an ethical life.

The next argument is the psychological one, which in tangible terms is about practising self-control, and why this is difficult amidst the myriad temptations of the experience-obsessed consumer society. The human psyche appears to have a tragic aspect, sometimes dubbed the ‘hedonic treadmill’. Once we have achieved something for which we have strived, we grow accustomed to it and the attraction soon wears off. We then come up with something else to strive for, in a never-ending pursuit of happiness that only stops when we die. The more we have, the more we want. On the face of it, it seems strange that even people in our part of the world, which in historical terms is incredibly rich, work themselves half to death, or worse, in order to earn more. Can we break this vicious circle?

The final argument in favour of missing out is derived from aesthetics. The idea of beauty in simplicity is a classic one, found in both art and science. Perhaps it also applies to the art of living? I argue that there is aesthetic value in simple rituals that organise our daily lives and free up energy and resources for more significant activities. The chapter also attempts to suggest more specific ways in which we can practise the art of self-restraint. Making a virtue out of necessity can become a life art.

Taken together, these five arguments show that not only is there a political imperative to the art of self-restraint, there is also an existential depth, an ethical potential, a psychological benefit and an aesthetic quality to missing out. Dividing the discussion up into these different domains is not the only way to address the issue, and there are no rigid boundaries between (for example) the existential domain and psychology, or politics and ethics. The chapters overlap, but can also be read on their own. I labour under no misapprehension that readers will agree with all five arguments, but my hope is that they will still get something out of reading the book. Some may focus on the psychological dimension and reject the political – others will see it the other way round. My own goal is to draw on analyses of the many different aspects of life to show that missing out has greater fundamental value than most people might think. We can all learn to focus, to opt out, to settle for less of that which is actually trivial – and then hopefully have more time for what is significant. The anthropologist Harry Wolcott used to advise his PhD students to ‘Do less, more thoroughly.’¹ Perhaps more of us should heed his advice – not just in our studies, but throughout our lives. To do so, we must have the courage to commit to something and to miss out more.