November 26th, 2012
(You are Rich!)
Are you walking past diamonds to get to the gold? We all have the same desires. We want to be moving towards happiness and we want to be moving far away from suffering of any kind. This is what we have in common. What we don’t have in common is how we see our present circumstances. It’s time to take inventory.
When you take inventory it is very important to focus on what you have and not what you have as compared to what other people have. First, you have to take a physical inventory. What’s working? Do not ask what isn’t working or what isn’t working as good as it used to because that will involve drama and drama always skews the results. Second, you have to take a love inventory. Who loves you and who has loved you in the past? Third, you have to take a worth inventory. What is your self worth? This is never to be confused with your net worth or again the results will be terribly skewed. Fourth, you have to take a service inventory. How have you been serving this world? Who have you helped?
Once you’ve taken a complete inventory, how does it look? Are there parts of your body working fairly well? Have you been loved by a relative, friend or teacher? Are you capable of improving yourself? Are there people who have been helped by your words, action or example? If you can answer yes to any of these questions then these are the diamonds in your life, the priceless kind. Are you looking for more of these or are you ignoring them while looking for stability, security and permanence. Those are merely the gold, important but nowhere near the worth of diamonds.
Know how wealthy you are in what really matters. Life, Love, possibilities and opportunity are the diamonds in your life. You are rich. Walk with your head high and your heart filled with gratitude and every time something brings you down, take out those diamonds and look at them. Like you, they are priceless.
(c)2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
January 16th, 2012
You were not sent here to live an ordinary life. You were not sent here to just make it through unscathed. It would be like using a powerful computer to hold the door open. You were meant to create answers. You were meant to go into the diamond mine and figure out how to get the diamonds and not waste a whole life sitting at the entrance waiting for someone in the mine to throw you a tiny diamond.
However your life has been up until now, what matters is what you do today and tomorrow. Between right now and the end of your life you can rewrite your legacy. If there are wonderful things in your past you can highlight and build upon them. If your past is a little murky you can make the rest of your days so brilliant that the murkiness will be obliterated.
This is it. This is exactly the moment that the rest of your life starts. This is wet clay, a blank canvass, the first page of a new journal. Some day in the future you will look back at this week and either pass right over it or you will look back at this week and say “That was the week that I started.”
Two questions will surface if you decide to start. First, “What do I start?” The answer is; take a step toward who you dream of being. Second, “What if I fail again?” The answer is; this time you can’t fail.
There is no second chance on any yesterday. There is only a limited amount of first chances on the days in front of you. This one, right now, begs you to begin. Smile to yourself, commit and begin. A future you will be very happy that you did.
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
November 21st, 2011
Go ahead, roll a big pearl down an incline and watch what happens. It rolls perfectly in a straight line picking up speed as it goes. Now roll a big diamond down that same incline and watch what happens. It rolls erratically if at all and picks up no great speed. The pearl is the winner right? Technically yes if we look at just one comparison but would anyone be considered wise for tossing away the diamond and pocketing the pearl after this comparison? Of course not because we know that while a diamond is never going to win a downhill race, in the light it dazzles and leaves us in awe. Every facet , which would be an imperfection in a pearl, is part of its dazzling beauty.
What have you been comparing yourself to? Was it the really popular guy or girl or maybe it was the athlete or the star student or maybe the partner in your relationship or your firm. Maybe your comparison is with a family member or next door neighbor. Is it a fair comparison? No one would pay much attention to a race between a diamond and a pearl and neither should you.
You are a diamond and the only reason that you don’t see your worth is because you feel around in the dark and all you sense are these sharp edges that go nowhere. They just stop and start, hundreds of them. You look out into the world and see smooth pearls and you hide in the dark with your “imperfections”.
THEY ARE NOT IMPERFECTIONS! THEY ARE FACETS! Step out into the light and you will dazzle us all. Step out into the light and sparkle and shine. Everything that you have been through, every mistake you have made, everything you have learned is a facet. There is nothing wrong with you. You are made of the strongest stuff in the universe. If someone doesn’t see your worth, that’s their misfortune. Don’t compare yourself to pearls and don’t hide. Stay in the light and sparkle.
(C) 2011 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com