Is Everything Meaningless?

"'Meaningless! Meaningless!' Says the teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'"
-Ecclesiastes 1:2
I was thinking about my last post about desire and purpose. I then wondered why we attach ourselves to things that don't really matter. We try to get as much as we can, but in the end they won't help us in any way. We follow this formula that everyone thinks is the key to success; study hard, go to college, get a job, get money and be happy. I realized that we don't really need money to be happy. Money will not last after we die, so there is no reason to get as much as we can. We don't need to buy a bunch of stuff that we don't need, because it won't last. When we die, nothing we save up in life will matter to us anymore. Why do we think we need things that don't last? We think these things bring us fulfillment. We think rich people are happier in life than poor people are. When I think about it, whether we are rich or poor, all will die. Whether you make 20 dollars or 20 million, when you die, it's all meaningless. What does a rich man have over a poor man? What does a wise man have over an unwise man? Nothing. It's all meaningless. Even worse is the man who has no one close to him. A man with no friends lives a truly meaningless life. He tries to get stuff, like the rest of us, but it is only for himself. How fruitless is that? A man who only works for himself really is living a crappy life. He dies, and nothing he does matters. No one cares about him, because he had no one close to him. So of course the question remains; what does matter in life? Does anything matter? I think so. For anything to have meaning, there has to be purpose. You have to look forward to something, have somewhere you want to go in life. Colossians 3:2 reads: "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things." In other words, don't focus on things that you can have on earth, but on something else. If you're Christian, focus on heavenly things. Set your mind on things of God, not on things of man. If you're not Christian, don't focus on getting material things, focus on getting more lasting things; relationships, friends, something. Don't constantly think about material things, but what you want to do with your life. A life focused on material things and focused on yourself is truly meaningless. I still do not fully know what is meaningful in life, but I know it is not about getting material things. Stop chasing after these things. They don't matter. It's meaningless.
-Smart