Chapter 15
Carrots 

False Rewards That People Utilize, Which Only Create False Motivations And Ultimately Fail To Produce True Positive Results.

Using desires and setting up rewards in order to make progress and encourage self growth is the most common way to design a life. It is also the wrong way to design a life.  False motivations or carrots as we call them, are hollow, shallow incentives that we design to tell ourselves that if we preserver and do something that we will come out on the other end better off and enjoy a reward for our achievement. Most often these things are material possessions but they can take the form of a whole host of other things from career to marriage to family, even personality, physic, or skill development.  Some bring momentary joy and many will go so far as to define the very parameters and far reaching success of our lives as viewed by fellow participants in this world that do the same thing and gauge success based on the same types of results. The truth is that for the developed conscious carrots are only distractions and deterrents that act against stimulating real growth. Carrots are time wasters and misdirect-ors and more often then not are down right traps the majority of mankind love and adore and spend their whole lives engaged in, oblivious to it all.

To examine and learn from our past is all that is required to come to understand and pass on to others insights that can help them avoid the things most are not even aware they should be watching for. We will look briefly at our own life and examples their in. Once you see how we have come to see what shaped us and filled our life prior to turning to focus first on the development of a fully developed conscious. We are still shedding the effects and resulting entrapments of the lingering effects of allowing ourselves to become influenced by all the wrong things and in all the wrong ways, as we once lived for carrots, as do most people in the world today.

Paul's life choice examples-

My life is about art but how did it start? Certainly not by the heavens opening up and a beacon coming down showing me that one day I would use this wonderful gift to be all that I am and ultimately help mankind. Art for me started out as just a way to get attention. "Wow! You can draw! Cool!"

As for grades and school, they were important mostly because doing well took the pressure off me by those that were over me. I received relief rather than consequence by doing well rather than poorly. I thought I was supposed to please the higher ups. That was what life was all about right? I do my part and they reward me. So peers, parents, all other matter of elders and authoritarian figures and the rewards they could give me if even by just merely not pointing a finger at me and making trouble for me. All this became carrots. 

Athletics were pushed on me and I obliged those that pushed, however, I did so for the wrong reasons, mostly because I thought I was supposed to do as they said and thought I had to as there was no other choice presented. I was willing to work at it a little harder on my own also because I did see positive results exhibited in my body and life because of it but in general because I did not make the choice to pursue it I still viewed it all as carrots.

College happened for me because I thought it to be the natural course.  I went towards what seemed the natural course for my skill development and what could be afforded to me by my parents who guided and motivated me up until this point.

As for girlfriends, I treated each as if they were the only one and meant for me.  If I did well by them they would be a carrot and be reciprocal for me. Mostly anything I got was a byproduct of being used though. I never got treated properly back in return until the special person came along who eventually became my wife.

My wife and I viewed living together as a "try it before you buy it" scenario.  Truly committed people wouldn't be like that and though we love one another now and have learned to be supportive and committed to one another for going the distance that initial doubt we exhibited toward one another proved to be to our detriment because we undermined the trust and support we should have had for one another by entering into the whole thing with less then the best foot forward of truth and support through faith and love.  Starting out in the way we did is commonplace but hurts trust and faith building that two people should have for one another. It can be done this way but there is a good chance there will be on going growing pains to be worked out for years to come. It looks easy, it looks attractive but it is not. There is a price to be paid for everything. Some never pay it and thus suffer on as they for a long time. Fortunately for us we did endure and work through. The way we did things at the time though, should have been the first sign we were lacking something but being young and living with an undeveloped conscious and no wisdom suffering the slings and arrows of the early life decisions we made unfortunately came because we did not have the ability to make any better ones at the time.

We viewed marriage as so many people do, as something you are supposed to do if you possibly can, because so much good comes through it and there is just not enough fulfillment any other way.  There are supposedly, arguably, good reasons more so than not to develop your life with a mate instead of by yourself.  Then there is love.  Not a carrot if it is real. That really can set up more than just a contract if you are fortunate enough to have it, and we did, thank goodness.  We loved each other so much in spite of our flaws and foolishness that the one thing we knew we needed to do was to set a good foundations with our creator that would withstand all that takes place in the world. That small effort upfront if you realize it needs to be made can put you on a course that will navigate itself if you are just conscious enough in the beginning to know to be aiming for it from square one. Fortunately my love made me want to protect and help grow what I valued, so my still small inner voice placed the utmost value on marriage the right way with a covenant with our creator. Our marriage brought us many self accepted and societal imposed guidelines leading to growth and happiness ultimately only if ills can be overcome.  The only option is to continue to try and grow one way or another until death.  That is if you are really married in the first place.  So few are.  We are.

I viewed my college major of General Fine Arts as just a way to focus more on music and make art not all that my life would be about.

I secured my first full time job with much enthusiasm and importance placed on it. I thought it would set me up for life and all would be what it was supposed to be some how.  I was wrong and short sighted. Fortunately I realized a better direction for myself, one that would allow more control over my own direction and life with in the space of one year working as an executive there. i went out on my own. This was the right thing to do because it was one of the first things that there was no promise of a reward for but concern and possibility a failure loomed overhead with every turn. I did this because I had to do it. Carrots would not have been enough to take the chance I did. I had to do it because I knew I would not be happy any other way. I knew I needed to listen to my small inner voice. Normally when one makes decisions like this they turn out better for the individual in the long run then going after something just because they want it. Doing something because you must is more likely rooted in the things that are more really you. Those types of decisions are normally quite a few steps up from living for carrots.

Another thing that I came to feel I must do and which no one told me to do other than in encouraging ways, was music. I viewed my interest in music as not just something I should enjoy but something I should participate in. I was an artist after all, I figured, and why should there be a line between art and music? Sure, art showed that it would pay me but my late start in music and not knowing what direction to go with it or officially studying it left it in a realm of something I only did because I wanted to. This is a good way to know there are no carrots associated with an interest but more because a natural desire and motivation that would continue and guide in the right ways for years to come ultimately leading to conscious expansion and growth n so many ways. The idea with my music was that I would conquer that which was difficult for me leading me supposedly to believe I could accomplish anything.  It worked, because I now do believe that but it is not up to me it is up to us.  So I have accomplished nothing but knowing I can accomplish almost anything humanly possible as long as it goes along and does not jive with the totality of the joint union and purpose of marriage.  I will allow nothing in my marriage will happen in a vacuum, nor should it. Nothing in a marriage that is positive can happen in a vacuum.

We moved away from our college town to Florida. We thought that getting out of the cold, dark, and grey north to be by loved ones would be good. We were not prepared for the nature tendencies of family's and friends limitations of consciousness and ills rubbing off on us. We were blindsided and it gave us more things to deal with than the endless seeming plethora of the things we already had buried deep in our psyche that we were already struggling with.

I found interest in working in the movie industry because I grew up loving movies and was comforted plus I thought expressing my ideas in movies would one day be my way to share my conscious with the world. I showed I had what it took but ultimately did not want to be told and be a part of the machine, I wanted to guide and with purpose and meaning so I knew I had to self teach and start over again with that aim.  My wife never understood that and that created problems that went on for years and years. She never saw that early in our life but is starting to now I think.  She said she would follow me to California but that was not evidence of understanding only fear that I would hold things against her so it was meaningless to me and I chose not to pursue what I wanted.  That, coupled with my uncertainty of where I belonged and how I could find my place and voice was just too much grey area. Thus no move to California and no life in the movie biz for me.

Instead, I started a video production business. I thought that it would encourage and grow all my own skills and powers toward guiding what I had to say into a huge success if I had any merit or anything to say in life I would say it here.  Unfortunately because of the money involved even though I covered it all I felt the whole time like I was basing and guilty for having the chance when my wife did not. Consequently I could never do what I wanted and needed to or risk judgement so I went the natural way and burned out by saying and doing nothing of substance for so many years and eventually making the real decision not to follow my dreams because with my handicaps, whether self-imposed or not, it would not happen anyway, so why try?

Living for too many carrots and the devotion to them for so long left us lost and then the demons came. The demons came in the form of becoming lost and wasting time and going no where until we become so bogged down and entrapped that we finally become aware of our diminished state. The effort and time to work back from here to a positive stance in life is more time wasted.

So lost we needed to waste some time. We needed to so so badly. Unfortunately for us opportunities for wasting time abound. We bought an additional house when the one next door became available and it offered us much busy work and distractions that we used to fill in time we were non committal about while we kept a fantasy in the back of our minds that doing anything is better than ding nothing as we were bound to get ahead rather than behind simply by putting in the effort.  Bad Idea but again with a void of wisdom what else was the for us and an undeveloped conscious? At least we were around the home and available for our children and the raising of them was probably better than it would have been if we were available less. So in the end we count this failure as a blessing as we move out of our traps and try to view things as positively as possible that we find ourselves left with as we discard the unwanted waste products of our neglect and misdirection whilst running toward carrots early on. We like to think that in every failure there can be found successes and perspectives that show the good that came. This is not to say that striving to fail is good but if you try to avoid it and still fail make the best of it and see the blessings that can come from what you have learned even if the lessons were difficult.

I pioneered new avenues and inventions within the developing world of costuming during the dot com age when every one was affecting so many things so incredibly at the time, as the world first sat up and took notice of all things they had never had access to when they came on line for the first time. I enjoyed the process for a number of years and really caught my stride. I was world renowned and hugely successful for a while. I felt that finally at least the world showed it supported what I could do and uplifted me because of it.  Even though I finally realized it was ultimately only a mirage.  It was all just a phase and a glimpse of a delusion I must have needed to allow myself to feel vindicated with what I was trying to show you I could do, and I finally realized no one loved me but only used me for what I could do for them.  This is when my eyes really opened and true wisdom really came.  This is when I gave my wife a necklace symbolizing our next stage in life and the exponential growth that could finally come from a fully developed conscious and the unilateral understandings of all things together. I distanced myself from costuming and the internet and the message boards and such and welcome the idea that I was assured that other things would fill in the voids and they would be better things and transform me and they have and are doing so. I started playing the piano and focussing on long term goals like the writing I am presenting to you here. I was starting to have some belief in the ideas and wisdom themselves though they came from a hard road rather than as a gift would really be the most precious things I had and the most worthy things to give..

Future Carrots.  We most recently almost succumbed to the old ways once again. We must always continue to remember to never let our guard down. In troubled times we wanted financial freedom and the ability to make choices and restructure our lives in ways we could not afford. We flirted with making desperate decisions but fortunately came to our senses and this chapter is a result of the perspective we learned. We suggest learning to look at financial lack of freedom sometimes as a good thing. In our case it was. It is a good thing we did not have a practical way to go for and pay for what we wanted in this case or it would have been too late. More desperate decisions would have been made. Instead we found more enlightenment and strength to persevere in difficult times.

I still want to move to California and my wife really and finally does now as well but for all the right reasons on both our parts.

If I get to live where I wanted to live practically my whole life and my wife finally shares my dream or part of it will we ultimately flourish?  Was it all just about resistance verses persuasion then?  Was it all related symbolically to the act of breaking a horse?  No, there are inner unseen demons that go deeper and or misunderstood because they are founded in lacks from childhood in addition to ones we self imposed upon ourselves either consciously or subconsciously.

Our agreed upon solution-

Whatever happens we will not live for carrots. We must recognize them and remind ourselves and our conscious constantly to be on guard against them. No more carrots.  True motivation and positive things well up from in side. They have a different voice than the voice heard from cause and effect where all leads to carrots. Learn to distinguish the sounds and resonances of these two distinct inner voices and you will be well on your way to making better decisions that leave you in a place where you can grow and develop your conscious as you should with out suffering the trappings of mankind's shortsightedness.

Now we see that to come to a proper understanding of our ills and flush them out is our only on going worthy objective.  Simply our lives and refocus until we can spend almost all of our waking time and even subconscious time re-exploring and discovering our inner selves and where our motivations really lye and really should lye.  We will continue to distinguish which ideas and directions are real and good and which ones keep us down.  We will hone and build ourselves back up until we are worthy to have a dream and follow the roads to get there without any scathing hidden ills daily affecting us in a negative manner even when the obvious factors in our lives seem to be going well.  

We will cease to dream about and for things that must be financed or endured in order to reward us. This is too limiting.  We will fix.  We will build.  Dreams will not lead.  Actions and real absolute functionally strong people will carve out a reality that may appear as a dream to others but in our life it will only be a byproduct or success that comes naturally from being everything we were created to be by ourselves and together in the total absence of all ills we ever allowed to live.  In the process we will have to identify and flush out any ills that we have passed into our children or to others in our lives and in addition to all that, spend our lives helping others to learn how to identify and not succumb to ills of similar natures and do our best with the rest of the lives we have to offer what we have achieved to an ailing world as desperate for our findings as we once were.  This is what I always believed would and must occur for our lives and purpose to be fulfilled and shown as valuable.  

I can not suggest that you do not have to do what you have to do in the mean time because you will starve if you change everything immediately but you must slowly evolve your life and ween each other off of the things that are holding you victim to a self imposed trap.  We will not flock to them even if things come easier because they are not what we want. 

We believe that the realization of these things is the only way to truly be happy.  It is meant to be that way.  It was an extension to the golden rule that extends inward into the marriage.  Man can not live literally by all the rules in life that come from the less than fully developed consciouses of others, what makes everyone think they can do it in marriage.  The fact they think they can is their flaw.  All of our failures come from human nature taking the reigns in the absence of acceptance of the fact we are deluded and overly optimistic.  We must see this and change our perspectives, tactics and directions.

No more carrots for us.