Choosing life and not lusts and pleasures:[1]
Scripture instructs man to choose life, to love G-d, who is one’s very life. Choice belongs to the realm of the intellect, to choose good and despise evil. Love, however, is in the heart. The choice for good comes prior to the love, as one must first accustom himself in his intellect to choose life to the point that this is an absolute decision. One must fully decide to choose the spiritual life force that one sees within the heaven and earth and not choose the materialistic aspects of the world which are all of its pleasures which are referred to as death being that they do not last and rather wither away.
[1] Likkutei Torah p. 46b