Love your life and you will lose it but hate it you'll keep it for eternity

This is one of the many "difficult sayings" of Jesus. It seems on surface like a paradox. It is at best impractical, or at worst impossible. Jesus made similar statements in several places in the bible:

John 12;25
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Luke 9:24
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

Mark 8:35
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

This site calls it "Hate it or lose it". It says: "In the final analysis, the difference between those who really believe in Jesus Christ, and those who only make glib concessions to religion, in found in how they respond to the words of Christ, Himself. Those who believe that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), and the express image of His person (Heb 1:3), and that there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved (Heb 4:12), will always respond to the words of Jesus as if both heaven and hell were hanging upon them."

In the passage in John 12:1-26, this is Jesus' last Passover week before his death. He just raised Lazarus from the dead. He was in Bethany where he was anointed by Mary with expensive perfume and where he once again affirmed his impending death and burial. The chief priests were trying to kill him and his own disciple Judas Iscariot had decided to betray him. He was received by the people of Jerusalem as a king in the famous "Triumphal Entry". What an emotional roller coster ride!!

Now there were some Greeks (who had converted to Judaism) among those who went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival who wanted to see Jesus, presumably because they had heard so much about him. It was in this context, that Jesus said these words. But he began by using an object lesson - a kernel of wheat must die (buried in soil) before it can spring to life, a life that will produce many seeds. So what is it like for those of us who trust in Jesus to die and what is it like to really live?

Bob Wilkin has one of the best answers I have found:
Love and hate are figures of speech concerning priorities.  He suggests that what Jesus is calling for is self denial. We are to deny any pleasures that stand in the path of glorifying and obeying God. Only by losing our lives (denying ourselves) do we truly gain them - lives that God plans for us. He made this strongest admonition to Peter, his closest disciple in Matthew 16:24: "Whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me". This is after Peter, with the best of intention, tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross!

The act of self denial is not easy. The more we appreciate what the life now as God intends it to be, and the future glory, the more likely it is that we find our self-seeking life to be less attractive and therefore denying it would be that much easier.