Yes, I grant you have a point.
Humanly speaking we can struggle through life trying to correct ourselves. But when you have done that what will have been the point ?
According to my personal philosophy that
is the point. Life is
supposed to be a struggle. History and Nature teach us that. The choice we get is whether or not we're going to struggle for something worthwhile against whatever it is that's standing in our way or holding us back, or sit where we are and struggle against guilt, regret, despair, hopelessness....
Where is the reward for all those denied pleasures and desires we so lust after ?
If indulging in these pleasures and desires is robbing you of your peace of mind, and if over coming them (or even just trying to) helps you become the person you would like to be, that in itself is a huge reward.
It's the difference between living a life that's just an ordeal as opposed to one that plays out as an adventure.
We die - just as if we would have done while living in self-indulgence.
Even if we put the possibility of a life after this one aside for a moment, this just isn't true: If at the end of our lives we look back and all we see is damage in our wake, which is the usual scenario of a life based on self-indulgence, even from a completely narcissistic perspective that life was a failure. If we consider the other people involved, it was a tragedy.
The incentive or reason to go through a hell of change just would not be there without God's promise of reward at the end of it.
For one thing, positive
change, while often painful, is always much less so than stagnation. And it's a completely different kind of pain: the first is the pain that inevitably comes with effort and experience, ie., growing pains. The latter is the pain of regret, despair, disease, and hopelessness.
"Abandon all hope yea who enter here". That's the true definition of hell.
Fact is God gives us power to stick with change which otherwise we would soon abandon.
Put in the context of the sentence that proceeded this one, it seems like you're saying that the hope of eternal life in some sort of Heaven is the only possible motivating factor for living a useful, moral, non-destructive life. That only works if all you care about is yourself, your own reward, and your own ultimate destiny.
Ironically, according to my own beliefs, anyone who's concern is limited to these things is already in hell (note: I'm not saying this is you, just pointing out the implications of what you're saying).