Missing Out On Things Quotes & Sayings

My dad had previously spoken about 'fighting through things to get to the good stuff' or some such concept, and as he shook the salt water out of his curly brown hair, he talked more about people 'giving up and missing out on fantastic moments'. — Norman Ollestad

It was never the poverty that deterred me, never the disease, unsanitary conditions, bugs or garbage, those things were never even a thought in my head as a reason for not staying. I kept looking for the good and always found it each day. I was happy on the reservation.
It would have all worked out if Chief could have been a little nicer to me. The only thing I was missing was love and respect from my partner. Maybe he had changed. — Little White Bird

To say that a schlemiel is a luckless person is to touch only the negative side. It is the schlemiel's avocation and profession to miss out on things, to muff opportunities, to be persistently, organically, preposterously and ingeniously out of place. A hungry schlemiel dreams of a plate of hot soup, and hasn't a spoon. — Maurice Samuel

And I remember when I met him.
It was so clear that he was the only one for me.
We both knew right away.
And as the years went on things got more difficult,
We were faced with more challenges.
I begged him to stay,
Tried to remember what we had in the beginning.
He was charismatic, magnetic, electric, and everybody knew him
When he walked in every woman's head turned.
Everyone stood up to talk to him.
He was like this hybrid, this mix of a man who couldn't contain himself.
I always got the sense that he became torn between being a good person and missing out on all of the opportunities that life could offer a man as magnificent as him.
And in that way, I understood him.
And I loved him, I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.
And I still love him, I love him. — Lana Del Rey

I just want to see around beautiful things. I don't realise how much I miss out on just seeing beautiful scenery. — Alana Haim

I was being pushed into a corner from every angle, and I was missing out on all the things that had always mattered to me. — Kiera Cass

I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are and to look where things have gone missing. And it's really in the gap - it's in the erasures - that I think the novelist can best go to work because inevitably in history in any period, we know a lot about what happened, but we may be far hazier on why it happened. And there's always the question, why did it happen the way it did? Where was the turning point? — Hilary Mantel

I know what it feels like, and it sucks, it really does, when you are up in the middle of the night thinking about the things that you've suddenly became aware of. The things you're missing out on right now, and all the people who are not close to you anymore, and all of the good times that will never happen again, and all the people who have meant the world to you who have forgotten about you forever, and you get this awful feeling that's kind of like a mix between loneliness and nostalgia. — Abraham M. Alghanem

Technology has also given us greater automation that allows us to take large tasks and turn them into more manageable tasks. The pressure then comes from executive management to be "fully informed and fully engaged" in every aspect of our operation, after all, it's easier than ever to do so! This of course misses the point that those advancements free the leader from the "small" things and allows them to focus on things with bigger impact like, team member development, strategy and other proactive measures. We're missing out on the big picture if we are constantly focused on the small things. — Cameron L. Morrissey

That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything. — Etty Hillesum

Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? I ask you, Betsy - who would ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

Sometimes when you're in a more fast-paced place, with more to see and do, you miss out on things like nature and beautiful, God-made things. They call it "God's country"! — Valerie June

Each album takes two or two-and-a-half years to finish between recording and touring. It's like being with an old boyfriend every single night watching the same things on TV. There is a world out there going on that I'm missing. — Bat For Lashes

When I was 13, I was playing in the bars. I guess it's a changing world. Some things are better today, like the internet. We have different ways of reaching each other. E-mail and all that stuff is wonderful. I actually think the kids are missing out on a lot of stuff. — Ray Parker Jr.

Because, what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying that the second car is much better off than the first.
Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference.
So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we're not comparing it with anything. — Hugh Laurie

To be so superfocused and honed in on one thing can be good because then you get what you're supposed to get done, done but you also miss out on other things. I could have spent more time with my family, and a million other little things. — Joan Jett

I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are, and to look where things have gone missing. — Hilary Mantel

He was maxed out. He had no
resources left to do anything else. That's what happens
when you're tired. Your decision-making skills erode. You
start missing things - things that you would pick up on
any other day. — Malcolm Gladwell

Finn caught my gaze. "I know things seem rough with him right now, but he'll come around. He went nuts when you were missing."
"He has a temper." Which wasn't surprising, considering his tragic background.
"No, Evie. He was ... frantic, out of control. I'm talking Hulk-smash on ye olde cabin. When he realized our lack of transportation was the sole thing keeping him from you, he stormed back into that militia's camp, striding into a hail of bullets. Dude didn't duck, didn't sidestep, just rolled in, killed, took that jeep."
My lips parted as I stared at Jackson in amazement.
"He loves you," Finn insisted. — Kresley Cole

I'm not that big of a partier. I wasn't concerned about missing out on things in college. — Matt Holliday

If you wait for things to be perfect you'll just miss out on life. — Chris Pratt

If you don't conquer your fear, you are going to miss out on some great things in life. — Andy Stanley

For those, like me, who fastidiously kept track of each time the basketball was being passed among white shirts yet somehow managed to overlook the conspicuous presence of a Halloween gorilla that strutted dead center into the visual field, the study served as a vivid demonstration that the perceptual skills on which we so greatly rely are, to put it mildly, far from flawless.
...
There are, however, multiple implications to the invisible gorilla experiment findings. Chabris and Simons point out that their research "reveals two things: that we are missing a lot of what goes on around us, and that we have no idea that we are missing so much." In other words, we cannot see it all and we are affected by the false assumption that we mostly can. — Bob Katz

But even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: the standards of behavior are still those of kind and quantity, the security sought is still the security of numbers, and the chief motive is still the consumer's anxiety that he is missing out on what is "in." In this state of total consumerism - which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves - all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand. — Wendell Berry

Sometimes I think I missed out on things like travelling. I'd have been terrified of missing an audition. I didn't start a family because that's not something I take lightly. Acting meant so much to me. — Brendan Coyle

The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple, right?
You're not going to out-work me. It's such a simple, basic concept. The guy who is willing to hustle the most is going to be the guy that just gets that loose ball. The majority of people who aren't getting the places they want or aren't achieving the things that they want in this business is strictly based on hustle. It's strictly based on being out-worked; it's strictly based on missing crucial opportunities. I say all the time if you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready. — Will Smith

Man has an almost infinite capacity for taking things and people for granted and thereby missing out on the pleasure of being grateful that things aren't worse and of praising and thereby lifting the spirits of others. — Aldous Huxley

Don't think I don't worry about what I'm missing out on. Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

I lit a candle in a Catholic church for the first time that afternoon. Me, a Presbyterian. I lit a candle in the warm, dark, waxy-smelling air of Saint Adelbert's. I put it beside the one that Mrs. Baker lit. I don't know what she prayed for, but I prayed that no atomic bomb would ever drop on Camillo Junior High or the Quaker meetinghouse or the old jail or Temple Emmanuel or Hicks Park or Saint Paul's Episcopal School or Saint Adelbert's. I prayed for Lieutenant Baker, missing in action somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam near Khesanh. I prayed for Danny Hupfer, sweating it out in Hebrew school right then. I prayed for my sister, driving in a yellow bug toward California - or maybe she was there already, trying to find herself. And I hoped that it was okay to pray for a bunch of things with one candle. — Gary D. Schmidt

Augustine's feeling of fragmentation has its modern corollary in the way many contemporary young people are plague by a frantic fear of missing out. The world has provided them with a superabundance of neat things to do. Naturally, they hunger to size every opportunity and taste every experience. They want to grab all the goodies in front of them. They want to say yes to every product in the grocery store. They are terrified of missing out on anything that looks exciting. But by not renouncing any of them they spread themselves thin. What's worse, they turn themselves into goodie seekers, greedy for every experience and exclusively focused on self. If you live in this way, you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to sau a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes. — David Brooks

What does a woman do as she waits for her man? She may wash her hair, put on makeup, choose the kind of outfit any woman would be eager to try on, spray on perfume, and look at herself one last time in the mirror. If she does these things, it's when she and the man she's waiting for are in love. It's different when a woman waits for a man she still loves but who has broken up with her, because the pure joy of it is missing. Loving someone is like carving words into the back of your hand. Even if the others can't see the words, they, like glowing letters, stand out in the eyes of the person who's left you. Right now, that's enough for me. — Kyung-ran Jo

Anyone who's read all of Proust plus The Man withour Qualities is bound t be missing out on a few other titles. — Lorrie Moore

It [fiction] allows us to see the world from the point of view of someone else and there has been quite a lot of neurological research that shows reading novels is actually good for you. It embeds you in society and makes you think about other people. People are certainly better at all sorts of things if they can hold a novel in their heads. It is quite a skill, but if you can't do it then you're missing out on something in life. I think you can tell, when you meet someone, whether they read novels or not. There is some little hollowness if they don't. — Philip Hensher

If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond doubt, I minimize the risk of error but I maximize, at the same time, the risk of missing out on what may be the subtlest, most important and most rewarding things in life. — E.F. Schumacher

We're so distracted, we're missing out own lives. The parent who records his kid's dance recital or first steps or graduation is so busy trying to capture the moment--to create a thing that proves that they were there--they miss out on actually living and enjoying the moment.
I've done this before with my camera. I have jockeyed for position, bumping elbows with other parents so I could get into the best spot to look through the viewfinder of my SLR to capture the moment of my daughter's dance recital. Five-year-old Phoebe was so cute in her little sailor outfit, tapping away. And I got some great pictures. It's just that while I remember getting the pictures, I do not recall the moment. So much of the time we don't trust ourselves to experience our world without stuff. Things so often don't enhance our lives, but are barriers to fully living our lives. — Dave Bruno

You're one crazy S.O.B. You stole her right from under the guy she was with," he whispered in awe. "I can't believe you got her to go out with you. How'd you do that?"
"I paid attention to what was going on around me, which is what you need to do. Then you'll start seeing the things you're missing."
"I have no idea what you mean, but feel free to teach me, Master Obi-Wan."
I snorted and Cami looked at me. I smiled and she gave me a shy one back before turning toward the screen again. — Lacey Weatherford

But I just felt at one point that I was on a hamster wheel, you know? Just doing movie after movie and thinking so much about career related things and I think missing out on hanging with my friends and family as much I needed to. — Woody Harrelson

People are bored. They're dead! Go to a shopping mall and check out the faces. I did this for years - I'd drive out to the malls on weekends and just sit there watching people, trying to figure it out. What's missing? What do they need? What's the next step? And then I got it: imagination. We've lost the ability to make things up. We've farmed out that job to the entertainment industry, and we sit around and drool on ourselves while they do it for us. — Jennifer Egan

Scientific truth is characterized by its exactness and the rigorous quality of its assumptions. But experimental science wins these admirable qualities at the cost of maintaining itself on a plane of secondary problems and leaving the decisive and ultimate questions intact. Out of this renunciation it makes its essential virtue, and for this, if for nothing else, it deserves applause. But experimental science is only a meager portion of the mind and the organism. Where it stops, man does not stop. If the physicist stays the hand with which he delineates things at the point where his methods end, the human being who stands behind every physicist prolongs the line and carries it on to the end, just as our eye, seeing a portion of a broken arch, automatically completes the missing airy curve. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

As an actor, I'm always looking for scripts that I relate to, in some way, and things that are interesting and different. If it's combining romance and action, I'm not missing out on anything. I get to do it all. — Liam Hemsworth

No more running, and hiding. And acting scared of things. It's about time I face the fire and put it out. Confidence is what I've been missing all along. I never really found out who I was, or where I belong. Now, I know. I finally know who I am, and my place in this world! I'm ready to shine. Bring it on. I'm ready! — Kelsey Wood

There is one guarantee: If we're not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times. What — Brene Brown

I was missing out on a lot of things that my friends were doing, but in another way, they were missing things I was doing. It was kind of a trade-off I had to make. — Victoria Azarenka

I feel really lucky to come home to a place that is so beautiful. sometimes it's sad to leave and go out on the road, missing everything that happens here - but honestly, it's nice to miss the things that you love once in a while. so you never forget to appreciate it. hopefully, i can say this without sounding like a preacher but ... remember to enjoy EVERYTHING. the things that feel good, the things that hurt, rejection, acceptance.. it's all going to make you better. stronger. and more like yourself. every once in a while i get a reminder of how much i'm okay with just being me. i know that sounds ridiculous. cause i'm in this band. we're lucky. we got successful. but who i am is still this nerdy, silly, flamethrower of a person. and it took me 20 years to see that and get it and love it. — Hayley Williams

Sometimes when we try to get outside of ourselves, to be like someone else, you miss out on so many beautiful things that you don't know that you are because you're looking at someone else. — Salma Hayek

That's no doubt why Google took the lead in an astonishingly large $542 million investment round in Magic Leap last October. Whatever it is cooking up has a good chance of being one of the next big things in computing, and Google would be crazy to risk missing out. The investment looked especially prescient in January, when Microsoft revealed plans to release a sleek-looking headset this year. HoloLens, which lets you interact with holograms, sounds as if it's very similar to what Magic Leap is working on. — Anonymous

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas - he's the controller - and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land. — Richard Feynman

Wide awake to the presence of God, I realized I had been so focused on asking why a good God allowed bad things to happen that I was missing out on the nearness of God all along. In becoming preoccupied with the why, I was missing the who. — Margaret Feinberg