Dangling that Bitter Carrot

/ bensbitterblog
How to wake up.

How to wake up.

There is probably some sort of reason why I get up at 5:30 in the morning, fall asleep in the shower, put some clothes on, shave this freaking face, get in a car, hop on the train with like a billion people that give me bitter stares, get off the train and walk like 15 miles (or a quarter mile. I’m not so good at distance measuring.) to the school, then sleep through class, just so I can come home at 7 pm. There must be some sort of carrot at the end of the stick right?

Follow me to hard work with carrots as a reward!

Follow me to hard work with carrots as a reward!

I think the thing at the end of the stick is the carrot. And the carrot at the end of the stick is a job. Wow. Really? A job? That’s why I’m doing this? Crap. So essentially, I’m going to school and doing all kinds of homework, just so I can get a job and do office work? Maybe I need to stop chasing carrots and start asking for the carrots to be pizza. We all know carrots are disgusting, right? Unless there is some sort of ranch or marinara sauce, or the carrots are cut up and dipped in butter and chives, carrots are the worst. As opposed to pizza which is delicious and zesty and cheesy and crusty and just the right amount of bitterness to go along with all it’s pepperonian meatiness.

People in general do way too much work for carrots. For instance, what have I done in my life to get a girl? I’ve pretended to like soap operas, I’ve spent way more money than I’ve ever earned, I’ve pretended to like some of their friends who were complete psychopaths, and I’ve watched movies that people couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to watch if I wasn’t so enchanted by that particular woman at that particular time.

What about the sports carrot? I worked hundreds of hours on practicing, running drills, learning plays, watching boring video tape, and sacrificing hours and hours of couch time, TV time and video game time, just so I could sit on the bench of a game and get 1 minute of glory at the end of a game when even the cheerleaders and supportive parents have left. Now I’m left with bad knees, bad backs, cracks and bitterness for playing these so rewarding sports, that “helped my self-esteem” and helped me learn “about sacrificing for the team”. Yeah, sacrificing so my “team” could get all the girls and scholarships, while I worked hard to give them someone to beat up on at practice.

All this hard work for this one shining moment.

All this hard work for this one shining moment.

And how about the parent carrot? I got to listen to the little miscreants cry for the first two years about everything from “there’s not enough food to eat” to “I need to take a nap, but I’m too tired to go to sleep” to “I want that toy that costs a hundred dollars, but I will just throw it away and play with the box”. Though they were kind enough to sleep while I was at work, and then be sweet and playful and happy at 3 am, so I had some reason to be awake at every single hour of the day(thus completing my goals of seeing every hour).

I’m tired of chasing the carrots. I’m not getting off the couch for anything but pepperoni pizza from now on. So unless you are telling me the couch is being moved into a mansion or the job is pillow tester, you know where to find me.

Now it’s your turn. What carrots have people been using against you? What carrots are you tired of chasing only to get ones that have just been dug up from the dirt?

ARRRRGGGGHHHH

Bitter Pizza Motivated Ben

93 thoughts on “Dangling that Bitter Carrot”

  2. My bitter carrot is the old trope “slow and steady wins the race.” I excel at slowness, and can be quite the reliable plodder consistently doing my best, BUT HAVE I WON? No. This makes me bitter, as you can well imagine.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. It’s 5:30 am here. I have to go to work. I’m tired of eating carrots. I’m tired of telling other people to eat carrots. Instead, I should eat a pizza and go back to bed. Maybe I will have some wine too? It’s 5:30 pm somewhere.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Well, I am happily crunching the carrot (aka “job”) I was finally able to grab, thanks to hard wok and education. šŸ™‚ But that’s it. When other people try to dangle other kinds of carrots, hoping that I’ll chase them, I just shrug and go make myself some popcorn.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. There was one time in my life where, for about three months, I was paid to watch TV. I was overseas in the Air Force, stationed in Turkey, and I had to pre-screen videotapes of American TV shows we were going to broadcast to the troops. That’s because we had to censor out anything that might insult Islam.

    Some of the shows were pretty good, like David Letterman, for instance. And nothing ever got censored. Turns out the Turk have a lot of tolerance for most insults. So it was great. All those many years of school and struggling up the ladder toward my crowning achievement of watching TV for a living. But for only three months. Then I got sent back to the states.

    My carrots have been limp and chewy ever since.

    Like

    Reply

  12. My niece ate the carrots that were meant for the Dutch Santa!! :’) Hilarious!
    The tradition is for kids to put their shoes near a fireplace/radiator/door, put something in it for Saint Nicholas, his horse or his helper and sing a song. Then the next morning there’s a treat in the shoes for the kids (kind of like hanging a stocking, I suppose?).
    My nephew sang his little heart out, then bawled his eyes out as his sister snatched the carrots from their shoes and ate them!
    There goes your argument about carrots being disgusting šŸ˜‰

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  15. I never personally believed this “carrot,” but elementary school teachers always tell the kids, “One of you in this room could be president if you work really hard!”

    I’m not sure how many people have been born and/or lived in America throughout its history, but I’m guessing it’s in the billions, and only 45 of those people have been elected president. That’s a pretty obscure carrot to chase.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Yeah, and who knew all you had to be was a guy that happened to be born into wealth and be a jerk to be a president.
      I think fame in general whether it be president, athlete or actor, but that is how millions of people are motivated when they are young to do a stupid amount of hours of things.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. I’m bitter about my house. Bittersweet really because I love my house, but like every house, it’s a money pit. My carrot is a new light fixture, but the light shows how awful the walls look, so I have to get them painted. Then the carrot becomes freshly painted walls, but then the dated window treatments stand out, so I have to replace the shades. The bitterness never ends, does it?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • You bitter believe it. The carrots are all over any house. I keep thinking maybe we should just get a condo, but then the HOA’s and all the stupid people involved with them are almost as bad as leaky pipes. At least pipes shut up after you fix them.

      Like

      Reply

      • I totally get that. I used to be a property manager, and some of the properties had HOAs. HOA Boards are like bad in-laws, constantly checking to see what you did wrong and the first to point it out.

        Like

        Reply

        • Yeah, we live in one temporarily and one of our other people in the group is always telling us what to do. Since she has bad knees so we do her garbage for her, but when we do, she always has commentary for us. For instance, we brought the four cans (one from each part of the fourplex) and she was telling us that we weren’t spacing them right. So said that we needed to place them a little apart so the garbage people weren’t knocking them all over the place. I was like wow….

          Like

  20. I love the way you spread the bitterness around, Ben. I have spent my entire life dealing with these dangling carrots. Going to school for 8 hours a day, sitting in a desk 8 hours a day, repeating that same bitter cycle at the university and then doing it all over again but this time in a tiny cubicle. That cubicle made me feel like a very bitter mouse, stuck in a maze with the possibility of cheesy goodness somewhere but every time I would get close, no cheese! So bitter. Very bitter.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. I’ve had this carrot (The Walking Dead) hanging over me for awhile now (7 years), I tune in every week hoping for happy feeling for my survivors. Its weird, because in the 7 years I’ve watched this carrot, I think I’ve felt maybe 7 happy moments. That’s only 1 moment per year. If you think about it, those carrot odds are pretty crappy. Some people look at my carrot and ask, “What did you expect with a title like that?” and I just shake my head, because I know the show is going to be the ultimate con when the zombies take off their masks and everyone admits they’ve been playing an elaborate hoax on Rick since he woke up in the hospital. I suspect the reasoning behind the hoax is a very important psychological experiment.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Now that is annoying. I don’t watch TWD so I don’t know anything about it, but that it is about zombies. I’ve never been terribly fond of zombies, but I hear it is good, but I’ve also heard a little frustration with it too. Sounds like you might have nail it on the head (of a zombie). People just want the hope that these people may have a better life someday. That is ultimate bitterness though. Always having hope and always getting let down. How about we rename the show and call it Bitterness?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Your Bitter Comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.