Death Is Coming. Here's How To Actually Live Before It Does.

Ever notice how we spend most of our lives avoiding the one certainty we all face?

Death is coming. For you. For me. For everyone.

Yet instead of this truth liberating us, we spend our limited heartbeats trapped in anxiety, distraction, and what Naval Ravikant calls "not being here for it."

I recently came across wisdom so clear and actionable that it cut through years of mental clutter. It wasn't abstract philosophy—it was a practical blueprint for dealing with anxiety, wasted time, and finding genuine presence.

Here are the three most powerful insights, and exactly how to implement them today:

1. Anxiety Is Just Unidentified Stress

Most of us walk around with background anxiety but can't pinpoint why we feel this way. According to Naval, anxiety is "pervasive unidentifiable stress where you're stressed out all the time and not even sure why."

The real problem? We've accumulated so many unresolved issues that we can no longer identify what's causing our discomfort.

Action Step: Next time anxiety rises, grab a piece of paper and write down every possible source. Don't judge or filter—just list everything. Then for each item, identify the two conflicting desires creating the tension:

• "I want to be liked" vs. "I want to speak my truth"

• "I want financial security" vs. "I want freedom from this job"

• "I want to be healthy" vs. "I want comfort food"

Simply naming the specific conflict behind each anxiety reduces its power immediately.

2. You're Already Dead To Most Moments

"Each moment just disappears; it's gone," Naval observes. "If you're not there for it, if you're stressed out or anxious or thinking about something else, you missed it."

This is the brutal truth most productivity gurus won't tell you: being physically present while mentally absent is a form of death. You're already dead to that moment.

Action Step: Create a "Presence Trigger" by selecting an everyday action as your reminder (opening a door, picking up your phone, sitting down). Every time you perform this action, take three conscious breaths and ask:

"Am I actually here right now, or is my mind somewhere else?"

This single practice, done consistently, can reclaim hours of lost life each week.

3. Wasted Time Has Nothing To Do With Productivity

The greatest revelation from Naval's perspective is that wasted time isn't about accomplishment—it's about presence.

"The true wasted time is time that you're not present for. When you're not doing the thing you want to do to the best of your capability such that you're immersed in it."

This completely inverts our conventional understanding. Reading a book and being fully absorbed isn't wasted time—even if it produces nothing. Working on an "important" project while your mind is elsewhere is the real waste, no matter how productive it appears.

Action Step: Tonight, identify one activity you genuinely want to do tomorrow. It could be anything—reading, walking, having coffee, working on a specific task. The only requirement is that it's something you genuinely want to do, not something you think you should do.

Tomorrow, do that activity with complete presence for just 20 minutes. No phone. No multitasking. Just full immersion. Experience what Naval calls "not wasted time" regardless of the activity's external value.

The Single Most Powerful Practice

If you take nothing else from this letter, try this:

For the next seven days, start your morning by writing this question at the top of a page:

"How would I live today if I truly understood I'm going to die?"

Spend just two minutes writing your answer. Don't overthink it. Be honest.

Then, before bed, ask yourself: "Where did I waste time today by not being present for my life?"

This simple practice has transformed my relationship with time more than any productivity system ever has. It doesn't add more to your life—it helps you actually show up for the life you already have.

Because as Naval reminds us: "People get worried about dying and no longer being here, but they don't realize that so much of their life is spent not being here in any case."

Just one life,

Richard Founder, Elevenstoic

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