Many, many people are lost in a trap of pushing their own pleasure buttons only to find that they are never satisfied. There are many ways to be caught in this trap. The desire for achievement, money, fame, power, beauty, drugs, food, alcohol, sex ... even safety, anything where the focus is inward rather than outward. Many of us are still "hooked" in one way or another. The time of reckoning will apply to all.
From
http://www.thegoldenrule.net/There was a man who died and was being taken to heaven by angels. But first, they wanted to show him hell (just for the hell of it I guess).
The angels then took him to a place where there was a great bowl, so great that it was as big as a lake. The bowl was filled with a nutritious stew. All the way around the sides of this bowl were people. Emaciated, starving, miserable people. These people had spoons to eat the stew with, that were long enough to reach it from the shore (about 12 feet). The trouble was, while they could scoop up the stew into the spoon, they could not get it into their mouths because the spoons were so long the stew would fall off before they could get it to their mouths. So here were all these pathetic people, suffering and moaning in agony, constantly trying to eat the food that was abundantly in front of them - all in vain. Next, the angels took the man to heaven. To his surprise, he saw the same scene! There it was, a giant lake-like bowl of the same stew, surrounded by people with 12 foot long spoons. Yet something was different here - all these people were smiling, happy, and healthy looking!
"Why? What is the difference here that these people are happy and well fed?", the man said to the angels.
They replied, "Have you not eyes to see?". The man looked more carefully, and observed that one person would scoop up the stew, and bring it to the mouth of another. Then someone else would scoop up stew and feed it to the other.
The angels smiled and said, "Here the people feed each other. Here are the people that learned the way of Love."