Pleasure does not bring happiness

2 Then I said to myself, “Okay, I will try to do everything that I enjoy. I will find out whether doing what I enjoy can truly enable me to be happy.” But I found out that doing that was also useless/senseless. 2 So I said to myself, “It is foolish to laugh all the time, and continually doing what I enjoy does not seem to bring any lasting benefit.” 3 So, after thinking a lot about it, I decided to ◄cheer myself/cause myself to be happy► by drinking a lot of wine. So while I was still trying to be wise, I decided to do things that many people do to be happy during the short time that they are alive on the earth. 4 I did great things: I caused houses to be built for myself and vineyards to be planted. 5 I told my workers to make gardens and parks. Then I told them to fill the gardens with many kinds of fruit trees. 6 I told them to build reservoirs to store water to irrigate the fruit trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and babies who later became my slaves were born in my palace. I also owned more livestock than any of the previous kings in Jerusalem had owned. 8 I also accumulated large amounts of silver and gold that were paid to me from the treasures of kings and rulers of provinces. I hired men and women to sing for me, and I had many ◄concubines/slave wives► who gave me much pleasure [EUP]. 9 So, I became greater than anyone else who had ever lived in Jerusalem, and I was very wise.

10 I got everything [LIT] that I [SYN] saw and wanted.

I did everything [LIT] that I thought would enable me to be happy.

All those things that I [SYN] enjoyed were like a reward for all my hard work.

11 But then I thought about all the hard work that I [SYN] had done to get all those things,

and none of it seems to bring any lasting benefit [DOU].

It was all like chasing the wind.