you will die.

Hey there,

You will die.

I'm not saying this to scare you or be dark.

I'm saying it because it's true. And because most people spend their entire lives pretending it's not.

Maybe you have 60 years left. Maybe 6 months. Maybe you won't wake up tomorrow.

You don't know. I don't know. Nobody does.

And the not knowing is exactly what makes it powerful.

The Gift Nobody Wants

Here's what's crazy.

Death awareness is the most valuable gift you can give yourself. But most people reject it.

They push it away. Change the subject. Fill their lives with noise so they never have to think about it.

Because thinking about death feels heavy. Scary. Uncomfortable.

But avoiding it? That's what actually ruins your life.

When you pretend you have unlimited time, you waste today.

You put things off. You say "I'll do it later" for years.

You scroll instead of creating. You wait instead of starting. You settle instead of choosing.

Not because you don't care. But because you think you have forever.

And "forever" is a lie that keeps you trapped.

What I Saw

I learned this lesson early in my life.

I watched someone close to me live differently than everyone else. Not because they were trying to be inspirational or prove something.

But because they knew their time was limited. Shorter than most people's.

They couldn't pretend. They couldn't put things off. They couldn't waste days on autopilot.

So every moment mattered to them. Every conversation. Every experience. Every choice.

They lived with an intensity most people never feel. Not because they were superhuman. Just because they couldn't forget what the rest of us do.

That the clock is running. And it doesn't stop.

Watching that changed me.

It killed my fear of failure. Because I realized the real failure is never trying in the first place.

It killed my need for perfect timing. Because if you wait for perfect, you die waiting.

It killed my ability to waste entire days scrolling. Because I'd seen someone who would have done anything for one more boring Tuesday. And I was throwing mine away for nothing.

That's when I understood: death awareness isn't the problem.

It's the solution.

When you actually remember you're dying, everything becomes clear.

The Trap You're In Right Now

But here's what nobody tells you.

Even when you know this. Even when you have the realization and feel it deeply.

You'll forget it the next day.

You'll wake up and go right back to autopilot. Back to the same patterns. Back to pretending you have unlimited time.

Not because you're weak. But because the world is designed to make you forget.

Studies show that most people between the age of 16-25 unlock their phone 96 times a day. And every single time, it pulls you into distraction.

Social media feeds that never end. Netflix episodes that auto-play. Algorithms built by billion-dollar companies to keep you scrolling, consuming, forgetting.

They need you to forget you're dying. Because if you remembered, you'd stop wasting time on their platforms and start actually living.

And that's the trap most people live in.

They know they should be doing more. Building something. Creating something. Spending time on what matters.

They know they're wasting hours every day scrolling through content that doesn't matter.

They know the gap between who they are and who they want to be is getting wider.

But they can't break the pattern.

Because knowing what to do isn't enough. You need constant reminders. You need something that won't let you forget.

Why You Can't Do This Alone

Here's what I realized.

You can't rely on willpower to remember you're dying.

Because willpower fades. Motivation disappears. Good intentions get buried under a hundred notifications.

You unlock your phone 96 times a day. And right now, every single unlock is a moment of forgetting.

A moment where you lose focus. Get distracted. Go back to autopilot.

You check Instagram and suddenly 20 minutes are gone. You open TikTok and an hour disappears. You scroll Reddit and your entire evening is wasted.

And every time this happens, you feel it.

That empty feeling after scrolling for hours and realizing you accomplished nothing.

That disappointment when another day ends and you didn't do the thing you said you'd do.

That stuck feeling when you look at your life and realize days are blending together and you can't even remember what you did last week.

You're not living. You're just going through the motions.

And the worst part? You know it. You feel it. But you can't seem to stop.

That's the “knowing versus doing gap”.

And it's killing your potential.

The Power of Constant Reminders

But what if those 96 unlocks became something different?

What if instead of moments of forgetting, they became moments of remembering?

What if every time you reached for your phone, something reminded you: you're alive right now. Your time is limited. This moment is all you actually have.

Not some generic motivational quote you read once and forget.

A truth you see 96 times a day. Every day. Until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Your thoughts shape your reality. That's not some Instagram caption. That's psychology.

If you change what you see 96 times a day, you change your thoughts.

If you change your thoughts, you change your decisions.

If you change your decisions, you change your life.

Death awareness isn't depressing. It's the most powerful tool you have.

It's what makes you fearless. What makes you take action. What makes you stop wasting time on things that don't matter.

The people who live without regrets aren't the ones who pretend they'll live forever.

They're the ones who remember they won't.

What's Coming

For the past year, I've been building something.

The biggest thing Elevenstoic has ever created.

I can't tell you everything yet. But I can tell you this.

It's built around one idea: you need constant reminders that won't let you forget you can actually feel and be alive.

Not more content you scroll past. Not another course you buy and never finish.

Something that meets you where you already are. 96 times a day.

Something that turns your phone from the thing stealing your life into the thing reminding you to actually live it.

It launches in February.

→ Join The People Who Refuse to Forget

Over 700 people have already joined the waitlist.

People who are tired of wasting their time. People who know the gap between who they are and who they want to be is getting bigger and bigger. People who want to remember before it's too late.

If you're reading this, you're probably one of them.

You know you won the lottery just by existing. You just keep forgetting.

And forgetting is what's keeping you stuck.

I'm not going to tell you this is for everyone. Most people will read this and do nothing. They'll close the email and go right back to scrolling.

But you're different.

You're someone who knows that death awareness isn't the enemy. It's the gift.

It's what gives you permission to stop waiting. To stop settling. To stop wasting the one life you have.

Join the waitlist →

More coming soon. This is bigger than anything we've built before.

Just one life,
Richard
Founder, Elevenstoic

P.S. You will die. But that's not the problem. The problem is living like you won't. Use the awareness. Let it wake you up. Let it make you fearless.