{"id":780,"date":"2009-02-28T18:25:25","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T23:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shieldsgroup.com\/?p=780"},"modified":"2009-10-09T16:12:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T21:12:47","slug":"the-value-of-the-self-focused-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/28\/the-value-of-the-self-focused-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of the Self-focused Life…"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a practical standpoint, the self-focused lifestyle simply doesn\u2019t work. It won\u2019t make you happy. In fact, it will make you miserable. But you probably know that. Thousands of years ago, Solomon also found this to be true. He pursued every possible earthly avenue to find happiness: scientific studies, musical achievements, literary accomplishments, and education. He poured himself into his work, amassing a huge fortune, which he spent on great social projects, public works, and real-estate developments….<\/em><\/p>\n

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
\nI refused my heart no pleasure.
\nMy heart took delight in all my work,
\nand this was the reward for all my labor.
\nYet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
\nand what I had toiled to achieve,
\neverything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
\nnothing was gained under the sun. <\/em><\/p>\n

— Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then he added, “So I hated life” (verse 17). So much for the self-focused life! The price of getting what you want is getting what you want. <\/em>— Patrick Morley, A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines<\/em>, pp. 155-156.<\/p>\n

Yeah — we all need to hear that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a practical standpoint, the self-focused lifestyle simply doesn\u2019t work. It won\u2019t make you happy. In fact, it will make you miserable. But you probably know that. Thousands of years ago, Solomon also found this to be true. He pursued … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[31,335,105],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-spiritual-life","tag-quotes","tag-selfishness","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9XvmV-cA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}