12. After all, a king can only do what previous kings have done.So I started thinking about what it meant to be wise or reckless or foolish.
13. Oh, I know, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness.
14. The wise can see where they are going, and fools cannot.” But I also know that the same fate is waiting for us all.
15. I thought to myself, “I will suffer the same fate as fools. So what have I gained from being so wise?” “Nothing,” I answered, “not a thing.”
16. No one remembers the wise, and no one remembers fools. In days to come, we will all be forgotten. We must all die — wise and foolish alike.
17. So life came to mean nothing to me, because everything in it had brought me nothing but trouble. It had all been useless; I had been chasing the wind.
18. Nothing that I had worked for and earned meant a thing to me, because I knew that I would have to leave it to my successor,
19. and he might be wise, or he might be foolish — who knows? Yet he will own everything I have worked for, everything my wisdom has earned for me in this world. It is all useless.
20. So I came to regret that I had worked so hard.
21. You work for something with all your wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then you have to leave it all to someone who hasn't had to work for it. It is useless, and it isn't right!