If you were given the option of having riches, or influence or wisdom, which one would you choose? Most people would choose riches or influence because we see them pursue those things in life. But Solomon would argue that wisdom is the most valuable of those options. In Ecclesiastes 7:11-29, he shares why this is the case as he explains the value of wisdom.

People want to experience the most amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain in life as possible. While it may not be possible to have no bad days, there are things we can do to experience fewer bad days with better living. Solomon teaches us how to experience better living in Ecclesiastes 7:1-10.

There’s something that all of us experience, but none of us want to–and that’s loss in life. We live in a fallen world and things don’t always go the way we would like them to. Things go wrong. People do wrong things. Accidents happen. But much of the loss we experience is from our own doing. In Ecclesiastes 6:1-12, Solomon shares wisdom about true loss in life; the kind of loss that we can avoid bringing on ourselves.

Most people want to get ahead in life; they want to experience gain in life. We see this from the popularity of TED talks and life coaches to the use of terms like “pro-tip” and “life-hack” in our language today. But long before there were life coaches, Solomon addressed the assembly and revealed how to experience true gain in life in Ecclesiastes 5:1-20.

As we live on earth, we face many problems. We face problems because of our health, problems because of circumstances and problems because of nature itself. But it’s likely that the biggest problems we’ll ever face in life will be because of other people. In Ecclesiastes 4:1-16, Solomon teaches us about the problem of people to help us navigate it and not be part of the problem ourselves.