The thing about the carrot

We all have carrots that we run after.
It is in our nature: we fixate. On something out there. On something we want. On something we would rather not (feel).

I call this the art of unconscious self-avoidance.
Because fixation always has two sides: The longing for the one thing. And the pushing away of the other.

I used to be my car. My title. My success. I was the man with the answer. The strategist. The one who knew which way to go. I was my calendar, my project, my “next level.” I was my résumé—almost a walking LinkedIn profile.
Functional from the outside, often emptier on the inside than I wanted to admit.

Every carrot is a point of escape. It distracts from pain, from powerlessness, from the fear of being insignificant. Or—more quietly still—from the question of whether I am lovable when I am simply there.

Fixation can be many things:
– The great father. The fit entrepreneur.
– The awakened human being, the silent self, the next retreat.
– Achievement. Possessions. Influence. Self-optimization.

Politically and socially, it is no different:
– Donald Trump: “If I always win, I am the greatest.”
– Friedrich Merz: “If the economy and order set the rules, the whole thing runs cleanly again.”
– Elon Musk: “If I colonize Mars, I have the future in my pocket.”
– Jacinda Ardern: “If we bring everyone along, politics becomes more humane.”
– Robert Habeck: “If the economy, the climate, and society are in balance, our life remains worth living.”
– Ken Wilber: “If we integrate all levels of development, we can awaken as a whole.”

And yes—people bash each other’s heads in over carrots. We all have the potential for it. Not because we hate each other. But because we believe our carrot is the one true carrot.
And that without it they are empty. And with these statements, that applies to me just as much, in the moment I am typing this.

Every carrot distracts:
From what I do not want to feel.
From what bothers me.
From what would confront me if there were no distraction.

The carrot is my toward.
It protects me from my away-from.

It is probably not about having no carrots, but about recognizing them more and more.

And about checking: Who is actually doing the running in me—and why?