I don't like the appeals to mortality (at all), the "things just fall away in the face of death" argument. It is like "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying" all over again.
The "regrets" sound good, are honey for our eyes and ears. But of course, we reason, they should have—it's always them, not us—thought more about family and less about work, picked up the phone and called their friend, written a note to the family members who had invited them to their wedding anniversary.
In the end, we don't call our friend because we don't feel like it, maybe we tell ourselves that if we weren't so lazy and busy we would do it, as if laziness were an unappealable sentence instead of a choice. We don't change jobs not because we are afraid, but because we make some calculations about trade-offs.
We prefer to spend time at work rather than with the family maybe because the wife or husband has put on forty pounds since the wedding, and children surely are the greatest joy, but if we were to go back in time maybe we wouldn't make them. Plus, if we hadn't worked all those hours, who would have thrown money around the house?
How can we be on social media instead of talking to our family members, friends, kids, spouse, some may ask.
Maybe we are not just a victim of the times, it is just that we have talked to our friends 1500 times and in our pocket there is a world that engages us, interest us.
We would have loved to be more adventurous in expressing our feelings, of course, but we were well aware that those we wanted would never come with us.
We live life now and, apart from some unfortunate fellows, we are not likely to die tomorrow or in one week or in one year. Embarrassment will maybe go away when we are dying, but what about the 10/20/30 years or more between now and then?