3 decades of exploring and still wondering what is it that really matters!

Is something worth pursuing or worth ignoring? We frequently face this question in our lives. It largely depends upon what we value and how much. But why we value some things more than others? Are we right in doing so or we just 'feel' strongly about it?

The other way around, do all the things that we choose to do or pursue, really matter? Some decisions might seem trivial e.g. whether we choose to get up or snooze, whether we choose to follow traffic rule or jump the queue, whether we stand up or continue to take shit when people around us talking non-sense,  whether we celebrate random days as birthdays and festivals or consider them 'just another day'.

In order to know how something matters, one possible way can be to try the available alternatives. For a person like me who seldom celebrated birthdays, it's usually away from any attention or limelight and to ensure that, I used to hide my B'day from social media (fb, orkut and likes), omit the birth date field wherever permitted, and so on. This year I forgot to hide my b'day from fb and realized it only when fb frnds started posting on timeline. I was too late to remove it so I decided not to hide it and see what happens and 'how does it matter' :)

2 days later I have a few numbers: On FB a total of 124 friends (out of 840 in friend list) wished. 5 wished a day in advance, 106 on the exact day and 13 a day late.

I couldn't stop myself from doing simple analytics on these numbers and here are the findings (and inconclusive inferences).

- Though I have around 25% friends in friend list whom I never met (or don’t remember having met them), but among 124 who wished on my wall only 10% are such. So people whom you know outside 'virtual world' are more likely to post?

- I have 21% female friends on fb (as per wolfram alpha facebook analytics) , among wall posters only 15% were female. Does it mean male friends are more likely to post on (my) wall? Really? :(

I was about to pull more statistics (e.g. do married friends post more or singles, do friends in India post more or those abroad et al. But just then came a question "How does it matter?" and I had no choice but to surrender. Ultimately those wishes or posts have no impact on my relationship with those people or for that matter even on cheering up my mood.. Or in other words "it simply doesn't matter!"

So I won't try to analyze any further and thank each one of those 124 for honoring my wall as well as the rest 840-124=716 for promoting cleanliness ;)

Among all these stupid non-sense thoughts and analysis I will keep on wondering "what is it that really matters"