The first half of Ecclesiastes 2 is a soul-searching, eye-opening read. Consider Solomon’s view:
“I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure’; but surely, this also was vanity…I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine…till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made my works great, I built myself…I made myself…I planted…I made myself…I acquired…Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all…I also gathered for myself…I acquired… So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem…Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, For my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor” (Ecc. 2:1-10).
His conclusion? “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done And on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind” (2:11).