Can I Find Happiness? Ecclesiastes 1-2

Ecclesiastes 2:1 (ESV Strong's)
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.

If I Could Please Myself, Would I be Happy?

Solomon was the richest and wisest man ever to walk this planet.  He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes to show that everyone and everything he pursued in life ... what he desired in life ... left him with emptiness and vanity.   His conclusion of the book needs to always be read first:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (ESV Strong's)
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

All the verses that proceed this conclusion are Solomon attempting to find happiness without God as the center of his life.  In the above verse he states that he set out to test all the pleasers of enjoyment.  What were they? Here is what he writes:

Ecclesiastes 2:2-10 (ESV Strong's)
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.

He had money, laughter, other humans, projects, song and dance and every other thing you could think of in his life.  His conclusion?  It was all vanity.  When we pursue other things to fill the hole in our lives we come up with a bigger hole.  God is the only thing that fills the whole in our livers.  We can think something else can, but, in reality it can’t.