May 28, 2025
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine —my heart still guiding me with wisdom — and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
— Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11, ESV
I grew up in Southern California — a place where the sun rarely takes a day off and the weather never really insists you pause. It was beautiful, yes. But also disorienting. When the skies are always blue and the air never really shifts, there’s nothing to mark the seasons. No cold snaps to push you indoors. No real seasonal change. Just a seamless stream of “good” days, one after the other, until you forget that time is actually moving. And eventually, it all starts to blur.
For a long time, I thought that blur was a Southern California thing. A side effect of the weather. But then something happened. Something we all welcomed at first. Something that promised to make us more connected, more efficient, more free.
The smartphone.
Since its arrival, that blur has followed us. Everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the mountains or the desert, the city or a small town. My Starlink Mini let’s me get internet while camping! How awesome, right? You wake up and it’s there — not just the phone, but everything inside it: the email waiting for a response, the Slack thread with 23 unread messages, the text from your team, the notification from that app you forgot you installed. Then it’s the podcast. Then it’s the news. Then it’s a reel, a story, a post, a headline. And before the coffee’s even brewed (or poured over if you actually like coffee), your soul has sprinted through five contexts and twenty decisions, and the day hasn’t even begun.
This is something beyond busyness. Something deeper.
I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. I’ve watched it pull people I love — leaders I’ve mentored, CEOs I’ve served, business owners I’ve walked alongside — into a kind of suspended state. They’re not breaking down. They’re still functioning. Still leading. Still getting things done. But they’re tired. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They are in this state of suspended blur.
If you’ve ever been inside a casino, you’ve experienced it without knowing. They're are designed to confuse your sense of time. No windows. No clocks. The lighting is set to the same level around the clock. The air is pumped with a steady current, cool and fresh enough to keep you alert, but never cold enough to make you want to leave. You’re surrounded by sound — bells, music, movement — but none of it gives you any real signal of when to stop. And so you don’t.
And that’s the danger: you lose track of time. You keep going. You forget to check the clock. You forget to look up.
Ecclesiastes 2 reads like Solomon’s moment of finally looking up.
He had everything: success, wealth, accomplishment, beauty, pleasure. He didn’t just dabble in luxury — he built empires of it. He made gardens, acquired gold, filled his life with music and laughter and work and reward. “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them,” he writes. And yet, when he stepped back and looked at all he had done, he saw it clearly: vanity. A chasing after wind. Nothing gained under the sun.
It’s an honest admission. And maybe that’s what we need right now.
Because the blur we’re living in doesn’t feel like rebellion. It feels like momentum. It feels like being faithful. Like being responsible. Like building something that matters. But if we never stop to ask why we’re doing it — and what it’s really costing us — we might find ourselves far down the road, only to discover we never truly chose the destination.
This is what I’ve seen up close. In founders and leaders who built the thing they thought would satisfy — and now feel stuck inside it. People who chased growth and got it —but feel like strangers to the person they became along the way. In friends who’ve been physically present with their families, but emotionally and spiritually a thousand miles away.
That blur has a cost. And if we don’t pause to consider our toil — like Solomon did — we’ll pay it.
Here’s the hope: it’s never too late.
You can still step back. Right now. Today. You can still look up. You can make decisions that will change the course of your life, and the life of those around you.
You can still bring your work before the Lord and ask the hard questions:
Stop here for a second and ask yourself these questions. Pause and think about your honest answers...
1) If everything I’m working on today fell apart… would I still be at peace?
2) Am I investing my time, talent, and treasure in intentional reflection… or just in output?
3) What will the people I love care that I did 20 years from now?