The Wages of Sin

In Romans 3 we read about the wages of sin being death. And we are rightfully taught that this refers to spiritual death and in some cases physical death. But when I've ever heard teaching on spiritual death, it always seems like this is happening after we die. But lately I've been thinking that this is happening all around us (sometimes in us) all the time. And, that this spiritual death process, when it is complete, is not just otherwise normal human beings getting tossed over into the lake of fire. It's the death that grips humans while they are here slowly turning us into people incapable of loving and being loved. That's what sin has tried to do to me, and I see the same thing at work in so many people around. What we aren't told often enough is that we pay the wages of sin here whether we realize it or not. And we will end up unable to feel joy, thankfulness, or love and we will not really be able to provide those things to others. And so the second death is actually happening while we live physically. As believers, the goal of our enemy is to get me and you to this point...to get us spiritually dead to where we cannot love or be loved, feel true joy, feel gratitude, or have faith. It is dawning on me that striving to be obedient to God and fleeing sin is to actually embrace life, purpose, joy, and freedom from the chains that make us miserable. The spiritual is psychological, emotional, intellectual and behavioral. If the world and the love of worldliness and preoccupation/distractions lead me toward death, then why do I (and most of us) work so hard to have it good by the world's standards?