A man walking through a city park happens upon a little boy sobbing uncontrollably. "Are you hurt?" the man asks.

"No," the boy whimpers. "I'm playing hide-and-seek with my friends."

The man nods with compassionate understanding. "And you aren't able to find them?"

"No," wails the boy. "I went to hide, and my friends didn't try to find me."

We never really stop being children, do we? And we know all too well the feeling of FOMO. Indeed, our collective Fear of Missing Out has only gotten worse; social media propagates the misperception that everyone else in the world is living a life of unrelenting excitement, happiness and pleasure while we muddle through our humdrum lives.

But there's something even worse: FOBMO — The Fear Of Being Missed Out. More agonizing than the prospect of not being in the right place at the right time is the specter of being consciously excluded or thoughtlessly overlooked.

Hence, this week's addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Athazagoraphobia (a*thaz*a*gor*a*pho*bi*a/ uh-thaz-uh-gor-uh-FOH-bee-uh) noun

The fear of being forgotten or ignored.

Perhaps the most deep-rooted of all human needs is the desire to be valued. We want to feel that we are important, that our lives matter, that we are making a difference. This can be a healthy desire when it motivates us to contribute positively to our communities and our world.

But, too often, we look to the wrong people for affirmation. When we do, we make ourselves subject to their value system, regardless of whether or not their system is based on sound and worthy values.

In her delightful TED talk, bestselling author Susan Cain explains how the industrial revolution transformed the way we approach social ranking. Back when most people lived out their lives in small, rural communities, they had plenty of time to get to know their neighbors by assessing character and evaluating worth.

With the mass influx into large urban centers, however, the sheer number of people we encounter daily requires us to make faster judgements. Perforce, charisma has become the currency of evaluation, even though there is zero correlation between extroversion and either competence or character.

The fallout is distressing. Not only does snap judgment incline us toward superficiality in our decision-making, but it also encourages the superficiality of ideas, since the most attention-getting notions may be the least likely to pay off in the end. Remember when Theranos promised early detection of cancer and diabetes? Or how Google Glasses and Hoverboards would change our world? Yet none of these instructive examples curb our irrational eagerness to jump on trains that never leave the station.

Why do we remain so willing to make ourselves dependent on the judgment of strangers? Perhaps the proliferation of social media gurus has caused us to lose confidence in ourselves.

Rather than relying on the madness of crowds, better to cultivate our own judgment, our own understanding and our own circle of trusted advisors. When we chart a course guided by ethical values and a reliable moral compass, people worth impressing will take notice and readily welcome us into their tribe. And that is worth more than an infinity of fly-by-night followers or smiling emojis.

Rather than enslaving ourselves to the shallow offerings of influence peddlers, better to build upon the foundations of time-tested wisdom. As the sages taught: Be a follower of lions, not a leader of foxes. By doing so, we take responsibility not only for our own fate but for the culture that we help take shape around us.

One simple mindset shift is to articulate daily our commitment to resisting the delusions of popular culture:

— My mission is to succeed by providing value.

— My purpose is to create, contribute and serve.

— My quest is to earn loyalty.

— My benchmark is to improve over yesterday.

— My community is measured by quality, not quantity.

To escape the diagnosis of athazagoraphobia, we need to stop trying to impress people who are impressed for the wrong reasons and start channeling our efforts toward making a meaningful impact on the world we live in. As Benjamin Franklin said: "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing."

See more by Yonason Goldson and features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists; visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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