Therefore this is truly a great vanity and misery, to be troubled in one’s own work with care and anxiety until it is finished, but when it is done, to die or become ill or be deprived of its use and its good by some other hindrance. Similarly, the one who succeeds to a thing that has been done does not use it or even destroys it. Such is the course of all of human life. God always battles against the counsels of men, and we in turn battle against the counsels of God. It is easy for Him to destroy whatever we have begun. Indeed, so great is the vanity of the heart that it never agrees with itself; nor can it be so stable that it can stick to present reality and find its peace there. When a thing has been attempted and accomplished by a man, the curiosity about doing something remains. There is boredom with what has been done, and something else is sought, as he has also said earlier (1:9): “What has been is what will be.” The human mind remains the same after achieving a thing as it was before achieving the thing—always inconstant and restless. If someone has a gulden, he concerns himself with his wish for ten; if he has ten, he wishes for a hundred; if he has a hundred, he wishes for a thousand. If a prince has one castle, well constructed, he wants two. If he has one kingdom, he tries to gain a second. In sum, Alexander wants many worlds. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.34-35)

Therefore I began to build, to plant vineyards, and omitted no labor or effort. But all I got from all these labors was vanity, because I wanted to direct myself by my own counsel.” The wish to direct oneself by one’s own counsel is a vain one. In fact, anyone who seeks to direct himself by his own counsel afflicts himself with a double disadvantage: first, he tortures himself with his own counsels; second, he accomplishes nothing, or if he does accomplish something, sorrow intervenes and undoes it. So Nero built a magnificent royal palace but did not enjoy it. That is the way it usually happens, that one man builds but another possesses and enjoys what has been built; as the parable in the Gospel says (John 4:37), “One sows and another reaps.” …(Luther’s Works, v.15 p.34)