Next Free Teleconference:

The Stick and the Carrot

Date and Time: Wednesday, Mar. 3, 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm PST
Number: (415) 671-4335
Passcode: 006191#
Listen Online: http://marcallen.com/teleconference/

Dear Friends,

There was a cartoon years ago in The New Yorker that sums up the state of humanity brilliantly:

There are crowds of men and women (mostly men) striding down a busy street. Each one is dressed in a dark suit and swinging a briefcase — and each one has a long stick tied to their back. It bends over their heads, and a carrot is attached to the end, dangling in front of them, always out of reach.

Everyone in the crowd is rushing down the street trying to catch the elusive carrot — except for the one big fat cat who’s cruising leisurely down the street with a broad smile, smoking a big fat stogie, and riding in the back of a big fat carrot.

So many of us are chasing a carrot. Our lives will be complete when we finally get that carrot! Look at the fat cat with the big carrot — I need to be like him!

Wealth, and power, and abundance will surely make me happy. I really just need to acquire a few more things, attain a few things, and then I’ll be happy. So many of us think there’s some important thing missing in our lives, and when we attain it, then we can relax and enjoy life and attain our dream of inner peace.

There’s a simple solution to all our striving and stress, chasing after that illusive carrot, and life works a whole lot better when you realize it: You already have the carrot. You are already complete in yourself. You have everything you need in this moment.

Eckhart Tolle puts it this way, with his usual insight, and with grace, ease, and lightness —

As far as your life situation is concerned,
there may be things to be attained or acquired.
That’s the world of form, of gain and loss.

Yet on a deeper level you are already complete,
and when you realize that,
there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.

— Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

You are already complete. You don’t need anything else in this moment to enjoy the here and now.

Just the fact that you’re sitting here and reading this is a miracle. You are a miracle of existence — trillions of cells working together in perfect harmony, a tremendous creation of the forces of life.

Enjoy it!

There will be more on this in my next teleconference. But you don’t need to listen to it. You don’t need to do anything else, really. You are already complete.

— Marc Allen