Ecclesiastes 2:17

"Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
Ecclesiastes 2:17


I came across this today and loved it because the first part sounds so modern... totally hating life. :) The reason that the speaker here is hating life is pretty much because life isn't fair. You can be really wise, and people will still forget you, just like an unwise person. You can work all your life and your stuff will go to someone who won't value it or care about it. Maybe we worry about similar things, or maybe different, but I think that we all have times where we feel this... like life just doesn't make sense and why even try, because nothing we are working for is really going to last. There are two different answers to that for us. One, we can remember that the point in life isn't necessarily to get the most toys, or the perfect solution. It's to learn and become better than we are. While we're working on things that don't last, sometimes we're building skills that we'll need later in life. Sometimes we're just learning patience or how to deal with disappointment and failure... but those are valuable things. Two, we can remember that some things do last. More knowledge and wisdom might not matter in this world and make us more remembered, and the stuff we collect might disappear forever when we die... but knowledge and wisdom we can take with us, and the relationships that we build and the good that we do... those things matter eternally. Today, if something goes wrong and we're hating life, let's remember to find the lessons in the impermanent, and to focus on the permanent.