This is not a hard saying. The problem is that folks don’t want it to mean what it does. Therefore, it either gets ignored or a more pleasant interpretation is given.

Jesus talks here about  loving your secular life and as a result losing your eternal life.

Jesus also said this.

“And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:24

That is because the secular world is good to the rich. Life couldn’t be better. Who could hate a situation like that? Overall, it is a brutal system based on laws of dominance and subservience. How could a poor man appreciate that? The secular world works out to be part of the animal kingdom. Is the world brutal? Read about it and follow world events. Look at what human beings must do to survive.

Earlier, Solomon made a similar observation.

“So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 4:2

This is from the first line of the Book of Thomas.

“Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not
taste death. Thomas 1

Understanding is an essential ingredient to the process of salvation. That includes understanding that which is distasteful and what seems depressive.

Understand Jesus, in terms of what he said and did, on occasion, might make one depressed.  The depression soon disappears and peace sets in. Peace provides the fertile  ground in which one’s spiritual identity germinates. (born again)