THE LOST ART OF ENJOYMENT
By Dr Leong Tien Fock
The Bible tells young people to enjoy themselves by doing what they feel like doing! In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher admonishes young people to rejoice and “follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes,” with the qualification that “God will bring you to judgment for all these things [whether they are good or evil]” (11:9 NASB; cf. 12:13-14).
This admonition is startling, and it seems to contradict Moses’ warning: “…remember all the commandments of the LORD, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes.” (Numbers 15:39) So, some may interpret what the Preacher says as a sarcastic warning to young people: “Go ahead and do what you feel like doing, God will judge (punish) you for that!” But this interpretation means we cannot do anything that we feel like doing. For example, when deciding what to eat at a restaurant, we cannot choose what we feel like eating. No sane person will put this interpretation into practice.
Actually, Moses is warning against doing what we feel like doing only when it violates God’s commandments. There are many things we can do and may feel like doing, even in making money, that do not violate God’s commandments. The Preacher is indeed telling young people to enjoy themselves by doing what they feel like doing, but only within God’s moral framework. And there is plenty of room within this framework to do that.
In fact if we violate God’s commandments, we cannot truly enjoy life. Now we must not confuse pleasure with enjoyment. Pleasure may or may not be enjoyment. Pleasure is a pleasing sensation or feeling of any kind, but after experiencing it, we may or may not be satisfied with it. It may even leave us feeling empty, if not guilty, let alone satisfied. How then can we call it enjoyment when it comes with disappointment, emptiness or guilt? Pleasure is enjoyment only when it satisfies.
The problem with pleasure
The Preacher addresses this distinction when he recounts an experiment he did with the pursuit of pleasure (2:1-11). In the experiment, he did not deny himself any pleasure by doing what he felt like doing that was not illicit. And he found the pleasure to be “profitless”; it did not satisfy him. His wisdom was guiding him; he did not need to experiment with illicit pleasure to know that it was harmful and would surely not satisfy.
Renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl explains: “Pleasure is, and must remain, a side effect or a by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.” So when pleasure is pursued, which was the case in the Preacher’s experiment, it does not satisfy and thus fails to be enjoyment. Why is it that when pleasure is pursued, it does not satisfy?
The Preacher contrasts the experience of a rich man who can enjoy life (5:18-20) with that of a rich man who cannot enjoy life (6:1-9). The former enjoys life because he is relatively free from the cares of this world. The latter does not enjoy life because he is covetous (greedy), which means he is not satisfied with what he has. A greedy person cares too much about the things of this world, and is thus filled with the cares of this world even when he already has everything he needs.
Covetousness vs Contentment
Of course, people are not covetous to the same degree, and one may not even be covetous in every area of life, at least not equally. To the degree that one is not satisfied with what one has, to that degree one is unable to enjoy oneself. Donald Trump once confessed: “My attention span is short, and probably my least favorite thing to do is to maintain the status quo. Instead of being contented when everything is going fine, I start getting impatient and irritable. For me, the important thing is getting, not having.”
Covetous people cannot enjoy life for two reasons. Firstly, since they are not satisfied with what they have or do, they do not enjoy them. This then drives them to get or do new things. But they will discover that they are also not satisfied with them. Hence, all they experience is the transitory pleasure that comes with getting or doing new things, a pleasure that can become addictive, and so the miserable cycle repeats itself.
Secondly, the cares of this world constantly hang over their head. Thus they cannot abandon themselves to the enjoyment of what they have or do. The cares may even weigh down their heart so that they no longer feel like doing what used to give them pleasure. Since a covetous heart is a restless heart, covetousness in and of itself already robs us of the carefreeness that we need to enjoy life. What more when it leads to violating the other commandments—telling lies or committing theft, adultery or even murder? Hence, not only is there plenty of room within God’s moral framework to enjoy life, outside this framework there is really no room for enjoyment though there are lots of space for pursuing pleasure.
Therefore the Preacher admonishes against covetousness: “What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires” (6:9). In other words, “It’s better to enjoy what we have than to always want something else” (CEV). And he highlights the root cause: “All a man’s labour is for his mouth and yet the appetite [literally, soul] is not satisfied” (6:7). He is talking about the hunger of the soul that nothing in this world can satisfy. Jesus Himself refers to it as the thirst of the soul that only God can quench (John 4:13-14; 7:37-39; cf. Psalm 42:1-2; 73:25).
So, when people pursue pleasure rather than seek God, whether through acquiring more things, achieving greater success or seeking thrilling experiences, they are trying to meet the need of the soul that only God can meet. This explains why pleasure does not satisfy when it is pursued.
Wise advice for the youths
The Preacher pays special attention to young people because youth and the prime of life are fleeting, and the ability to enjoy life decreases with the physical deterioration that comes with old age (11:10-12:5). Therefore he admonishes them to avoid physical as well as emotional pains, which will prematurely reduce their ability to enjoy life. Now, most physical and emotional pains can be traced to violating God’s commandments. For covetousness also leads to not keeping the Sabbath as holy and thus, not having enough physical and emotional rest as well as spiritual renewal. Hence, young people are to “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth” (12:1) and so “fear God and keep His commandments” (12:13).
A young person may say, “I do want to know God and become serious with Him but only when I am older; as for now, I just want to enjoy myself by doing what I feel like doing.” We can hear the Preacher responding: “My child, if you really want to enjoy yourself and not just indulge in pleasure by doing what you feel like doing, you had better come to know God and become serious with Him right now!”
Dr Leong Tien Fock has been studying the relevance of the Old Testament to the Church and the world today for more than 20 years. This has culminated in his recently published book, Our Reason for Hope: An Exposition of the Old Testament on the Meaning of History. He has a degree in civil engineering from University Malaya and obtained his PhD in (ancient) Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Asian Beacon: Oct – Dec 2018 (Vol 50 #4, p6-7)
