I picked up a new book recently that I kept seeing pop up all over social media. TikTok, mostly.

And yes… I know.

For someone who talks a lot about unplugging, being present, and not getting swallowed by the endless scroll, I still find myself getting pulled in now and then. Funny how that works. But to be fair, my algorithm isn’t all chaos and dance trends. It’s a mix of motivational quotes, thoughtful ideas, little mindset exercises, recipes I swear I’m going to try, homesteading inspiration… and of course a healthy dose of absolute nonsense.

Somewhere in between all of that, one book kept surfacing:

You’re Going to Die and You Haven’t Started Living Yet by Laura Falces and Uli Moreno Montana.

The title alone is enough to stop you for a second.

The book has 29 chapters, and the idea is to read only one or two every couple of days. Let it sit with you a bit. Let it breathe before moving on.

I’ve only just started. I finished chapter two today. And already… I’m hooked.

What caught me off guard wasn’t just that I liked what I was reading. It was how deeply familiar it felt.

Page after page, I kept having this strange mix of pride and uneasiness.

Pride, because so much of what they’re writing echoes the exact things I’ve been wrestling with and writing about over the past year or two. The reminders to actually live. To be present. To stop drifting through life on autopilot. To notice what matters before too much time slips by unnoticed. It felt like hearing someone speak thoughts I’d already been quietly carrying around.

And then there was the uneasiness. Because… how did I land in the same place on my own? How did I arrive at so many of the same conclusions without ever reading this book before?

Was it simply the result of spending more time looking inward? Of paying closer attention? Of being honest enough with myself to sit with uncomfortable thoughts and ask harder questions?

Was it introspection? Growth? A quiet kind of enlightenment that only seems to happen when we stop running from ourselves long enough to really listen?

Or maybe there’s something universal about all of it.

Maybe when we slow down enough… really slow down… and peel back all the noise and distractions, we eventually start uncovering the same truths. The kind that were always there, waiting patiently beneath the surface, just hoping we’d finally be still enough to notice them.

The first two chapters hit especially close to home.

Chapter one is called The Only Place That Gives Our Lives Meaning, and it centers around something that sounds simple but feels surprisingly hard in practice: being comfortable with yourself.

Not distracted. Not entertained. Not reaching for something to fill the silence. Just… you.

Your thoughts. Your own company. Your own mind without needing to drown it out.

That resonated with me immediately because it’s something I’ve written about here before. Learning to sit with my thoughts instead of outrunning them. Spending time looking inward. Being willing to ask questions and not always needing immediate answers.

Silence has a strange reputation these days. We treat it like something that needs fixing. Like every quiet moment should be filled with music, scrolling, podcasts, notifications, noise.

But there’s something powerful about silence. Sometimes the clearest answers don’t come when we’re chasing them. They show up when we finally stop long enough to hear ourselves think.

Then chapter two came in and hit from a completely different angle.

The Promise We Were Sold On and We Bought Without a Second Thought. That one dug into the endless pursuit of happiness.

And honestly… it nailed something I think a lot of us feel but don’t always say out loud.

We are living in arguably the most comfortable era in human history. More convenience. More technology. More access. More resources. More comforts than generations before us could have even imagined.

And yet somehow… so many of us feel exhausted or disconnected or restless or even empty.

That paradox feels impossible to ignore. The more we have, the more we seem to want.

The easier life becomes in some ways, the harder it can feel in other ways. like actually feeling content inside of it it.

That hit me because I’ve touched on this before too. How easy it is to get pulled into thinking the next thing will be the thing.

The next purchase. The next goal. The next milestone. The next distraction. The next version of “once I get there, then I’ll feel happy.”

And then you get there… and the horizon just moves again. Or maybe it’s the new toy you’ve been eyeing for weeks. The thing you convince yourself will feel amazing to finally have. And for a little while, it does. There’s that spark of excitement, that quick hit of joy.

Then before long it fades. And without even realizing it, your mind starts scanning for the next thing that might bring that feeling back again. The next purchase. The next upgrade. The next little dopamine hit. Always chasing the feeling. Always thinking maybe that will be the one that finally sticks.

It’s a strange thing to realize that comfort and happiness aren’t always the same thing and that abundance doesn’t automatically create fulfillment. Maybe contentment was never hiding in “more” to begin with.

So far, I’m only two chapters in, but this book has already given me plenty to sit with.

Not because it’s teaching me something wildly new but because it’s putting words to thoughts I’ve already been carrying for a while now or confirming something I’ve been preaching all along. There’s something strangely comforting about that.

Sometimes when you spend a lot of time reflecting, looking inward, trying to understand what really matters and what doesn’t, it can feel like you’re wandering through your own thoughts without a map.

Then every now and then you come across something, or someone, who echoes what you’ve already been discovering on your own. And instead of feeling alone in it, you feel grounded.

So I say again, perhaps these truths aren’t random. Maybe they’re waiting there for all of us beneath the noise, beneath the endless distractions, beneath the pressure to constantly do more, buy more, chase more.

Maybe we find them when we finally get quiet enough to listen.

I’m going to keep reading this one slowly, the way the authors intended, and give each chapter some room to breathe and settle before jumping ahead.

I have a feeling I’ll be writing about it again soon.

For now, I’ll leave you with this from Ralph Waldo Emerson which was also quoted in the first chapter of this book:

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Remember, you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Slow down, stay grounded, pay attention to what matters, and I’ll catch you next time.

Much love,
Rob ❤️