July 25th, 2016
Tomorrow morning, if you are lucky, you will wake up. Within minutes you will form expectations for your day. Maybe those expectations will be formed by your health or your job or what happened today or your to do list or maybe even the weather.
Those expectations will be a pretty good indicator of how your day will go. Your expectations are the blueprint for your day and for your life. Sure, some days will vary from what’s in your expectations but most days will stick pretty close to it.
Well, if we have expectations and our days go along with those expectations, it should be pretty easy to have great days by creating great expectations. Right?
Not so fast. Our expectations can take us to better days but the problem is that our expectations are so low that greatness in any area is far away. As we age, every time our expectations are not manifested we lower our expectations. When a relationship falters, lower. When a health crisis hits, lower. When a gamble turns into a loss, lower. When we don’t realize success in any area, lower.
Pretty soon our expectations are so low that we feel like we are doing okay if we are merely surviving.
It can be better. It will take a serious amount of effort but it can be much better. When I was in boot camp in the Marines some recruits were astonished that when they got hurt or tired or sick they were forced to continue. Their expectations and the expectations of the drill instructor were not the same. The higher expectations of the drill instructor is what caused them to grow, to persevere, to attain goals that they thought impossible for themselves.
We need to be our own drill instructors. If you want to succeed in dieting or reshaping your body or having better relationships or more money you are going to have to have bigger and better expectations for yourself and you will have to WRITE THEM DOWN AND FOLLOW THEM WITH NO EXCUSES ALLOWED!
If you are lucky enough to wake up tomorrow morning and if when you awaken you immediately bring to mind a positive expectation and follow your blueprint without excuses….you’ll get the life that you dreamed of but have come to think of as impossible. Bigger expectations + no excuses = Everything you want.
Sundrops On Life – Better Thoughts. Better Days.
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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June 20th, 2016
Every year in this country four hundred people drown when their cars go into water. This weekend I watched a video about surviving such a frightening event and watching it I was reminded about something very important about living.
All the experts agree that once a car hits the water you have less then a minute, sixty seconds, to save your life. All 911 operators are instructed to tell a person in such a situation to “Get out as quickly as you can!”
Sometimes in life, we are going through our daily activities and suddenly we hit the dark, murky waters of depression or worthlessness. Maybe someone says something to trigger it. Maybe a random thought starts germinating inside our mind. Problems, darkness, anger, anxiety suddenly wash over us and what do we do?
Usually we can feel what’s coming and we hopelessly brace ourselves for the onslaught of bad feelings and fears. We pray that we will be able to hold on and down we go.
What if we used the survival instructions of being in a sinking car? What if instead of bracing ourselves, we used every ounce of our strength to get out quickly?
An amazing, wonderful Buddhist nun, Sister Palma, many years ago taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life. She said “Thoughts are real, living things. When a dark thought comes to you, immediately say ‘Go in Peace, Thank You’. Say it every single time that thought surfaces and do it immediately. You may have to say it dozens of times but never fail to do it and the thought will wither and blow away.”
The lessons for today are don’t stay in a car that is going down and don’t hold on to a thought that is dragging you down.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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June 6th, 2016
What will be your legacy of greatness? Will you be remembered for your great wealth, your dangerous explorations, your amazing discoveries? Probably not.
Your legacy of greatness will be all about how you acted under trying circumstances. Were you a great complainer, worrier or whiner? Oh, they will definitely talk and laugh about that after you’re gone.
Maybe you were a great practitioner of patience under trying circumstances. They will tell great stories and laugh about how you patiently waited and waited before you made any necessary changes.
Maybe, just maybe, you will be remembered because you had great kindness and great love under any and all circumstances. They will tell great stories of your selfless acts and no one will laugh and many will sniffle and wipe tears away. They will tell how when you didn’t feel well and everything looked bleak you shared your light and not the darkness. Maybe they will tell about how you inspired people with your gentle encouragement. Maybe they will even tell how you were the only one that loved them. Maybe they will say that your memory will always comfort them.
At some point in time everything you now think of as yours will be in the garbage or in someone’s possession and they will consider it theirs. Your legacy is what you will leave behind and will remain yours. Your legacy hasn’t been written yet and you still have time to change it. Start walking your talk. Start improving your outlook regardless of what is going on. Take good care of yourself. Be an inspiration. Be accepting of other people’s foibles. Be less quick to anger or to criticize. Love more. Be better. Leave a legacy of real greatness.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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January 18th, 2016
Fill a jar with blue dye and drop something white into it. What happens? Try another color. Drop it in. What happens? Of course the answer is a big “Duh! Everything that you put into the blue dye turns blue!” So incredibly simple.
Now try to remember a time when your mind was filled with worthlessness or anger or depression. What happened to every uplifting thought that you put in there? It was instantly dyed with what already filled your mind.
So how do you change your mind if everything you think is going to be affected by what is already an established mood? When I was young, the common reply to anger was to sit still and count to ten. It didn’t take away every trace of anger but it did lesson it quite a bit. Updated, taking ten conscious, slow breaths can drain the thoughts that dominate your mind but that’s not enough.
When you clear your mind like this a vacuum remains and if you don’t fill that vacuum quickly, whatever you just let go of will get sucked right back in. So, the golden key is that once you have drained most of the dominant thoughts it is imperative that you start and continue to fill your mind with that which uplifts you. Your favorite thoughts, music, colors, imaginations, positive memories, love, caring, laughter, upliftment, smiling, dancing, yoga, exercise, a cup of tea, a scent that you adore. All these and much more are perfect refills for your mind. A mind that is full of what uplifts you has no room for anything else.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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January 11th, 2016
What is a loveless relationship? A loveless relationship is a rose bush that lives but never flowers. There may be some caring and concern but if love (there are no substitutes) is missing what is the purpose of being in a relationship? What is the purpose of wanting flowers with their beauty and intoxicating scents and settling for just green leaves?
We are not just talking about marriage here. Loveless relationships are everywhere. Children and parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, coworkers are all relationships and sadly some are loveless.
Let’s get one thing straight, you deserve love and it’s out there. It may not be where you are right this minute but it exists. When a person has been dying of thirst, they will drink the most toxic water just to alleviate their thirst. Don’t do that! Don’t run off with the first toxic person who espouses love. Wait for LOVE.
There are relationships that we are entrenched in such as parents and children for example but there is a way to get what you want regardless of your situation.
Firstly, make yourself attractive. No, not makeup or muscles. Loving yourself, loving life, loving God, loving your body, loving the sun, moon and stars and all the puppies and kittens and everything else makes you very attractive.
Secondly, like attracts like. If you are filled with love you will attract and be attracted to loving people. When you start complaining about a lack of love, you drain the love you have and you become less attractive to loving people and more attractive to drained people who complain about a lack of love.
A rosebush needs to be tended to often and it needs to be fed what it needs to blossom. Feed yourself with a positive expectancy and a positive outlook. Tend to yourself often and bloom, bloom, bloom.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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January 4th, 2016
As this New Year begins, you have to ask yourself this question – “Am I going to be controlled by what happens around me or by what I choose inside of me?”
Are you going to let what happens somewhere in the world determine your happiness level or are you going to work on you? Are you going to fill yourself with so much love that everyone that comes into contact with you will be uplifted or are you going to bring them down to a state of worry and pessimism? Choose wisely, you legacy is being written as you decide.
Speaking of legacies, at your funeral and for years to come, all who knew you and loved you will not spend more than a minute and a half talking about how much you weighed or what you owned. They will be talking about how much you loved, about how you were always there to lend a helping hand or supportive word or two. They will talk about your smile and your laugh and the twinkle in your eye. They will talk about your passions and the things they learned from you. They will remember how you rose up as the voice of love and optimism when the inevitable dark nights came….or will they?
Will they instead talk about your constant criticisms or your obsession with your finances or the news or the local gossip or your dark moods when the market dipped or your political party wasn’t elected? Will they talk about you as loving or not? Choose wisely, your legacy is being written as you decide.
What happens in your family, neighborhood, country and the world will always influence you but it is always your choice with how you will respond. The whisper of your heart will always be more powerful then the shouts of headlines but it all depends on which one you choose to make important.
Every moment of your life holds the possibility of a new beginning. Take this one right now. Choose to love more than you have been. Choose to send blessings where needed and help wherever you can but remember that your life is you first priority and you are, for good or bad, going to make an impact on many, many other lives. Yes, you will be remembered but how you will be remembered is entirely up to you. Choose wisely, your legacy is being written as you decide.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
November 9th, 2015
They say that tomorrow never comes but it’s just semantics. Tomorrow will be here and when it is born, there will be a name change. It will be called Today but just for 24 hours.
Are you planning for tomorrow? Or maybe you are fearing tomorrow? Or maybe it’s just another day? Let me tell you about tomorrow before it gets here.
Tomorrow gets here tonight at midnight. It takes a new name and it lives for just a day. In that day, provided you have the good fortune to live for all 24 hours, you’ll have both the power and the ability to change your life for the better. In fact the changes that you make could positively affect the rest of your life.
A period of time with that much potential cannot be taken for granted or ignored. Tomorrow is a gift that is coming to you with no strings attached. You can be grateful, surly, peaceful, resentful or any one of the seven dwarfs.
Sure there’s some limits on what is possible in one day but depending upon the choices you make, you can alter the course of your life one way or another.
Ask yourself now, Do I want tomorrow to be like today? Do I want my thoughts to be the same? Do I want the same view of myself? If the answer is yes, go ahead and strengthen your resolve. If the answer is no, write a new script for the coming day. Get a piece of paper and write out not a to do list but a how I am going to deal with all I have to do list.
What mood will dominate your day? Who will be reminded of how much you love them? How will you approach your reflection in the mirror? Will your words be criticisms or praise?
You have wished for great opportunities. Well, tomorrow is coming and it could be the beginning of the best time of your life. Yep, it’s that powerful. Ready?
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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October 26th, 2015
You are not great and maybe you never will be great. Blasphemy! Cruel! Horrid! How could you say such a thing?
The fact of the matter is that we are all pretty average. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I’m so tired of hearing and reading “experts” lie and say that everyone can be great and wealthy and problem free. It just ain’t so.
So many people today have low self esteem and are upset with themselves because they can’t get rich or they can’t manifest great things. They feel like failures because they “only” have a regular job. They have a three star life and they feel like failures because it isn’t a five star life.
The unhappiness you feel after all the seminars and all the CDs and DVDs and workbooks and workshops haven’t produced greatness is misplaced. You learned a tremendous amount from all your searching and you learned or will learn at some point in time that it’s okay to just be you.
You don’t have to be better than anyone else. You don’t need great wealth. You don’t need to be any better than you are right now. You don’t need to be skinnier. You don’t need to be more popular. You just need to be satisfied with you. That and a bucket full of love and gratitude will get you through this life very well.
In this life you will find people and animals to love and who will love you back. You will always, always have an opportunity to make someone else feel loved. You will have good days and bad days. The good days will make you smile and the bad days will give you something to talk about.
There may not be Oscars and yachts and embassy balls in your future but if you can look at yourself in the mirror and say “Yes, It’s Okay” and mean it, you can have a peace that escapes most people. Fill your life with love and… Just live.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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September 28th, 2015
Should you move, break a relationship, quit your job, go back to school, buy a drum set? When the idea of changing your life surfaces it isn’t because there is something terribly wrong with your life. It is because you want more. You want more adventure, more challenges, more newness. You want to feel more alive.
The key to success is to change before you make the change. What that means is to act like you would in a new place before you make the move. Look around you. Is this the way you want to live in the new place? Change it now. What it would feel like to have a certain someone no longer in your life. Is there freedom or sadness? Imagine it happening now.
We warm up before exercise. We prepare before going to bed. We put on seatbelt before we drive. We prepare for what we are going to do but we jump right into life changing situations and consider ourselves brave.
Whenever you are faced with a big change, take it for a test drive first! Act as if the change has already taken place. How does it feel to sit for endless hours in a classroom? How does it feel to hit a drum like a three year old instead of Ginger Baker?
Change is great! It is highly recommend. Lights come on in the areas of your brain that were dark and dormant. Change is aliveness! BUT make the changes that help you to live a bigger, better, happier life. Change just for the sake of change is a recipe for regret and depression and a fear of making any more changes.
Go ahead and make changes. Make small changes and big changes. Make them first in your thoughts and then in your imagination and then in your life. Right now, look around. What do you want to change? …..Think about it.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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September 21st, 2015
Be informed they say. Know what’s going on all over the world they say. Find out who’s covering up this or that they say. You are being lied to they say. Be filled with gratitude they say. Eat this and not that they say. Believe us and not them they say. Do this to live longer than say.
How about we stop listening to “them” and we start listening to ourselves? How about we decide today, right now, to just live?
Years ago we got input from our family, neighbors and teachers and a few books. From that we decided who we liked and what we wanted and we just lived. Television connected us to more people wanting to make a buck and get some followers. The internet followed and more people tried to make a buck and get more followers. Suddenly great numbers of people wanted us to think like them for their own profit or for power. We stopped just living and everyone started to enroll in the camps of “one of us” or “the others”.
It’s time to just live. It’s time to reconnect with your heart. It’s time to be you, the real you. The you that conforms because you want to or the you that doesn’t conform because it feels right. It’s time to stop getting upset with countries and to start understanding that the world is filled with different people and it’s not your job to “fix” them. It’s time to just live without judgement or animosity. You know in your heart who you want to be around and who you don’t. Honor that.
The past is not the answer. You’ve grown so much since then. It would be a shame to waste that. The present is where you get to say “I’m going to do my own thinking and make my own choices and as long as no one else jeopardizes the safety of me and my family, I’m just going to live”. The future is your place to dream. That’s important too.
It’s time to turn down the cacophony of voices wanting you to do this or believe that. There is a power inside of you that knows the way. It lives in a beautiful, powerful place past your conditioning and your ego. It’s who you are. Be quiet. Meditate if you can. Connect with the real you and just live.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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