Monday, February 02, 2009

all is vanity

"i became greater by far than anyone in jerusalem before me.

in all this my wisdom stayed with me. i denied myself nothing my eyes desired; i refused my heart no pleasure. my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

yet when i surveyed all that my hands had done and what i had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."
- ecclesiastes 2:9-11


i could hear her words, echoing the words of solomon, written a thousand years before Christ walked the earth. vanity of vanities, all is vanity. all is meaningless.

which means that 10 years from now, when rafael nadal is no longer world no.1, when barack obama is no more the president of the united states, when the next big thing is replaced by another next big thing..we will look back and say, there was nothing to be envious about.

it's difficult to grapple with this simply because we all want our lives to count for something. it explains why almost every day i mourn the mistakes i made which have kept me shackled here. it's also why i am struggling harder each day to be grateful for what i have. it's not that i don't know how blessed i am...but i want to be like solomon who wanted the world and yet guided his heart with wisdom.

i want it all!

and because i don't have it all, because i perceive that i have thrown it all away...it disappoints me to no end.

yet solomon, a man who made his works great, built himself houses and vineyards, acquired servants, constructed one of the wonders of the ancient world...looked back and said that it was all meaningless.

so i guess the verse for this first quarter of the year should serve as a reminder that worldly achievements, riches, fame...all is still vanity, a grasping for the wind. it doesn't comfort me much, but it does lend a little perspective to what life is; temporary, fickle-minded, eternally ungratified.

sigh.

lishun at 8:55 AM

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