July 30th, 2012
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If Love knocked on your door, would you open it? Most of us would answer this question with a loud, resounding “YES!” but is it the truth? Oh, we say we want love. We say we want the bliss and the feel good feelings that love brings. We say we want to be surrounded by and filled up with love but would we even hear that knock?
If love was knocking at the door, would we be too busy looking in the mirror and complaining about how we look? Would we be too busy watching the TV for the latest news on what horrible thing happened to someone somewhere? Would we be be too busy finding out who’s at the gym or on vacation on Facebook? Would we be too busy playing solitaire or other games?
The fact is that Love is always knocking on your door. Love wants to come in and show you how it feels to have it around, the focus of your attention. Love wants to embrace you, protect you and enliven you. It wants to work through you to paint and write and sing and dance and make other people happy. It wants to heal you.
The fact is that we are too busy to hear the knock on the door. We are too busy to pay attention to the longing in our heart for that knock on the door. We are too busy looking for something to temporarily feel like love.
The answer is to turn off the TV, step away from the mirror, close the refrigerator, shut down the computer, take a deep breath or two and relax even if it is for five or ten minutes. In those minutes start thinking about all you are grateful for and I promise you will hear a familiar knock on the door. Open it and smile.
(c)2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
July 23rd, 2012
We all try to get to a place of happiness, a state of well being, a peaceful countenance. We all go about it in different ways but the destination is the same. There is not just one way but there are some that are more powerful and direct than others. One of the most overlooked is actually one of the most effective.
When we think about being “fed up” with some aspect of our life we automatically think of it as a negative state but nothing could be further from the truth. Being fed up is the edge of the diving board, the top of the ski run, the door to the sky dive. It’s the place where the next step is change, no two ways about it.
It’s when we are fed up with coughing that we give up smoking, fed up with certain behaviors that jettisons the alcohol or drugs, fed up with the way we look that buys the exercise equipment or the new clothes, fed up with how we are being treated that gives us the guts to make an overdue change, fed up with poverty that gives birth to ideas and action.
I wish that you become fed up with not pursuing your dream. I wish that you become fed up with limiting yourself, fed up with criticizing yourself, fed up with not supporting yourself, fed up with feeling weak, fed up with worrying, fed up with being lonely or worn out or stressed.
Here’s to being fed up and doing something about it. Today. Cheers!
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
July 16th, 2012
We label our days as good days or bad days by the way we feel that day. If we feel good, it’s a good day. If we feel bad, it’s a bad day. The key then is to feel good more often thereby having a larger percentage of good days. Seems simple, right? Maybe.
The biggest hindrance to bettering our percentages is the fact that other people exist on the planet too. Oh, if there was no one else around, we could still call it a good day or a bad day based on other things like the weather or the availability of our favorite food but by and large, it is other people that we believe make it a good or bad day for us.
The fact is that there are other people on the planet, a lot of them. Each one, just like you and I, has their own way of thinking and acting and to expect all of them to be in total harmony with the way you think and act is actually quite laughable.
So, if your daily happiness is based on how you choose to see the world, you are in luck. If your daily happiness is based on being in perfect harmony with others, you’re screwed. Your only shot at having a good day is generating and embracing your own happiness. Other than that, it is just like buying a lottery ticket each morning and hoping to win the happiness lottery that day.
You wouldn’t expect everyone to be hungry when you are hungry so why should you expect everyone else to be happy at the same time as you. When you are hungry, go eat. When you want to be happy, think about your blessings and get happy.
A good day is yours and yours alone to make.
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
July 9th, 2012
We hear it from every news broadcast. Every pulpit and politician warns of it. Every internet news headline agrees. People from all walks of life and all socioeconomic levels swear it’s true. The world is going to hell in a hand basket BUT… what if it’s a lie?
Mark Twain said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” We listen to statistics and by them we see our world. What a crazy, mixed up way to judge our world. Do you want to judge it honestly? Okay try this.
Bring to mind all of the people you know, the ones you work with, live with, talk with, all the people you interact with every week. Are they good people? Are they the kind of people who would help you if you asked? Would you feed them if they were starving, give them water if they thirsted, call 911 for them if they needed it? Of course you would and they would do the same for you.
The vast, vast, vast majority of people are good people who don’t cause trouble and help where they can. Sure, there are always a couple of jokers in every deck but there are usually more aces than jokers. When bad things happen and the media is filming the blood and the tears, there are always armies of caring volunteers unreported in the background.
We will never hold our selves in high esteem if we believe that we are a part of a decaying, dark, non caring world. The truth is that we are good people living in a good world that keeps getting better. If you doubt it, don’t check the headlines, check the people around you. They care. They love. Volunteer ranks are getting bigger every year. People want to help. They and you and I want to make it a better world and it will continue to be.
Look at the world honestly. You would get a whole different (and wrong!) idea of card playing if you just focused on a couple of jokers.
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
July 2nd, 2012
Independence is a great big powerful word. Some people and countries will shun it and other people and countries will die trying to attain it. History books are filled with these quests. But what does it take for us, each of us, to be independent? Does it mean that we stand alone needing no one? Hardly. The moment you were born you became dependent on someone else for food and that really hasn’t changed all that much. Pop a cashew into your mouth or bite into a peach or have a bit of wild rice with your salmon. If no one else on earth was involved, how long would it take you to do that on your own?
Real independence is not just about food. It’s being able to think for yourself. Real independence is making your own decisions and yes, making your own mistakes. Real independence is seeing yourself in the best, most favorable light and saying “Yes, that is exactly who I am!”. Real independence is saying “This is what I believe because it resonates deep in my heart and soul. It may not match anyone else’s beliefs but no one else eats for me or sleeps for me or breathes for me, so if I can do those things on my own, I can think on my own!”
There is no one in the world that is better than you. There is no one else in this world that is in charge of your happiness. There is no one in this world that has the right to yell at you, belittle you or harm you mentally, physically or emotionally nor do you have the right to do it to anyone else. That’s freedom.
Many, many people have been wounded and tortured and killed in their quest for independence. Honor them for they have shown you freedom’s importance. Honor them by throwing off your mental chains and standing tall, free and independent.
There was a time when you were dependent on teachers and parents for your beliefs, truths and decisions but if they did their job properly, that time has passed. Now you can imagine the brightest possible future for yourself and you can find a road that goes there or you can create one yourself.
You are free. You can think and act for yourself. You can make the most of your life. If you want to be happy, you can be happy. You are, by God, independent. Embrace it!
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com