From the Editor’s Desk

Over spring break, I joined hundreds of RCs on one of HBS’s most time-honored, unofficial traditions: the Colombia trek.

It was everything I expected it to be: colorful, chaotic, and full of music and energy. I danced in Bogotá, climbed the 740 steps of El Peñón de Guatapé, played tejo with friends, practiced my Spanish with varying degrees of success, and went on boat tours that made the rest of the world fall away. I ate arepas con queso, bandeja paisa, and more empanadas than I care to count.

And yet, as much as I genuinely enjoyed it, part of me went for another reason entirely: FOMO.

Of course, FOMO is hardly a foreign concept at HBS. It was one of the first things we were warned about during START week. We were encouraged to embrace not just the fear of missing out, but the joy of missing out, too — JOMO, as they called it. I still remember my section chair, Professor Trevor Fetter, telling us that FOMO actually originated here at HBS by Patrick McGinnis (MBA ‘04) — via a Harbus op-ed, no less! — in an attempt to capture the very sensation that many of us feel on a near-daily basis: the subtle anxiety that someone, somewhere, is doing something incredible without us.

And while I appreciated the wisdom of those words at the time, I can’t say I fully absorbed them. Because when sign-ups for Colombia opened, I didn’t want to miss out. I wanted to be part of the story everyone would tell afterward. I wanted to belong.

FOMO, at its best, can be connective. It pulls us toward shared experiences even when we’re tired or unsure. It helps create the memories we’ll talk about years from now — the late-night street meat crawls, cable car rides with people we barely knew a few months ago, and conversations that start light and end up surprisingly profound.

But at its worst, FOMO is exhausting. It convinces us that rest is a missed opportunity, solitude is failure, and every choice we make is automatically the wrong one if someone else is doing something “better.” It’s a mentality that prizes motion over meaning. And at HBS, where calendars seem to crowd themselves before we’ve had a chance to breathe, it’s easy to confuse being busy with being fulfilled.

I’ve started to notice how this impulse shows up not just in how we spend our time, but also in how we approach ideas. When we’re constantly chasing what’s popular or impressive, we sometimes forget to ask what’s true for us. We forget that some of the most consequential thoughts take shape in the moments when we’re not performing.

That’s why I’ve found this month’s Harbus so grounding. In a world that feels increasingly tumultuous, provoked by news headlines that often leave us wondering whether we can really make a difference, it’s tempting to default to noise to fill our days with what’s loudest or most immediate.

But so many of our writers chose a different route. They slowed down. They asked harder questions. They turned toward a quieter terrain, not to escape the world, but to make better sense of it. This issue features profiles of students building solutions across manufacturing, retail, and healthcare — proof that innovation doesn’t have to wait for permission. We also have pieces that examine how HBS is reshaping our thinking around friendship, conflict, and mindfulness.

At the same time, our writers are looking outward. They’re interrogating corporate America: who holds power, how housing impacts inclusivity, and where the human race is headed. It’s a refreshing reminder that thoughtful discourse doesn’t require shouting to be powerful.

So maybe it’s time we add a third acronym into the mix: TOMO — the Trust of Missing Out.

If FOMO reflects our anxiety and JOMO our relief, TOMO is something deeper. It’s the confidence that not every experience needs to be ours to be worthwhile. It’s the trust that meaning isn’t found in doing everything, but rather in doing the things that matter. In a place like HBS, where opportunity is constant and the pace rarely slows, TOMO might just be the most radical mindset we can adopt. It won’t make the chaos disappear, but it might help us move through it with more clarity and grace. And if this month’s Harbus is any indication, that shift is already happening.

I should say this clearly: I loved Colombia. I had an incredible time and don’t regret a single moment. That trip pushed me out of my shell in ways I didn’t expect. It reminded me that openness and spontaneity are transformative forces and that sometimes the best version of ourselves emerges when we’re far from anything familiar.

But there’s also a part of me that knows why I went. And the writer in me couldn’t help but question it. Not to dull the experience, but to understand it. Because it’s important to check in and ask whether we’re still making decisions from a place of intention or simply being carried along by the current.

That’s how change happens: through consciousness, pause, and the willingness to wonder whether who we are is still aligned with who we want to be. If we can learn to interrogate our choices, then maybe we’ll start making space for something more lasting than momentum: meaning.

Michelle Yu (MBA ‘26) is passionate about all things media, with experience in business news, documentary film, broadcast journalism, and television. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum.