Meaningless, Meaningless...

I am busy with BCom Informatics.  Started this year.  I know, at my age such an act can easily be described as lunacy.  Some days I even agree with that.  Many a time I stand amazed at what I got myself into.

Economy was my biggest challenge.  I never had any exposure to it before.  I was expecting difficult assignments and long hours of study.  Great was my surprise when it all just made logical sense to me.  I even encountered an old friend in the textbook.  Maslow.

Maslow and his hierarchy of needs and wants.  I met him a couple of years back when I started with my diploma in management.  According to him, our needs and wants are limitless.  As soon as one need or want is met or satisfied, another arises.  We are just never satisfied!  For example, you NEED a car.  You buy a car.  You pay it off.  You start looking for another, more expensive and smarter car.  Not because you really NEED it - just because you WANT it.

We drive ourselves to the limit to satisfy our wants and needs.  We work long hours.  We neglect our families.  We get into debt.  We stress about work and the debt we got ourselves into.  So we work even harder and longer hours.  Just to satisfy our needs and wants.

Is it really worth it?  The question was actually answered thousands of years ago already:

Ecclesiates 2:17-26
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
 A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

We are back again at the question.

What in my life has eternal value?

The question is still haunting me.