September 24th, 2012
(You are Wonderful!)
How do you make the right decision? You have gone back and forth, first thinking one way and then the other a hundred times. You’ve lit candles, flipped coins and tossed crumpled up paper into the wastepaper basket from a fair distance figuring if it goes in you’ve made the right choice. You really want to choose BUT what if you choose wrong? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
First of all, let’s get this straight. There is no award for making it all the way through life always guessing right. In fact I think there’s a penalty for that. Secondly, what looks at first glance to be the wrong choice can turn out to be the best choice you ever made. Thirdly, no matter how hard you pray, God will not make the choice for you but will absolutely, positively help you with whatever choice you do make. Fourthly, the only thing that is stopping you from making a choice is fear. Not fear of a bad outcome but fear of blame. Fifthly, sixthly and beyond; right, wrong or indifferent, you grow from each decision that you make. There is nothing else that grows you faster.
So, when a decision is looming, do the right thing, make a decision. Any decision is better than none. Not making a decision is an affirmation that you are weak. The longer you delay, the more you reinforce this weakness. Put it off long enough and you will paralyze yourself into not making any decision about anything.
So, how do you make the right decision? You set a deadline and you make a vow to yourself to make a decision before that time. When that time approaches, you go for it. That act signals to yourself and to the Universe that you are not someone to be trifled with. You are a person who makes decisions. And what happens if it’s the wrong decision? You take full responsibility and you grow some more.
(c)2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
September 17th, 2012
(You are Excellent!)
Are you living in the right place? Does where you live make you happy? I’m not talking about zip codes or states or provinces. I am talking about where do your thoughts live when you are not concentrating on something important. Are you living in the past? The future? What is it like there?
Is it a past filled with wonderful memories and remembrances of love and joy and carefree days? Is it a future filled with promise and health? Or maybe it’s a past filled with regrets and self recriminations. Or maybe it’s a future filled with scarcity and darkness.
Only a few of us can afford to physically live in the richest part of town but EVERY ONE OF US has the free will to live in a better mental place. Your thought are yours for the making and no one can limit them or destroy them or take them away from you. And since our every thought determines our happiness, we can literally move into joy no matter where we are or under what conditions we find ourselves.
How would today feel if you focused exclusively on whatever joys there were in your past? How good would you feel today if you painted a mental picture of the perfect future for you and kept adding details? How would you feel today if you mentally moved to a place of optimism and joy and lived there for the whole day?
The same way we take a break and go on vacation, take a break from worry and move to a mental place of upliftment and enjoy today. What you were worrying about today will still be there for you to worry about tomorrow if you decide to go back to it. Maybe, just maybe, you might decide to stay in that happy place and who knows, maybe, just maybe, things will start to change. Let’s face it, your worrying hasn’t exactly created miracles. How about living somewhere else today?
(c)2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
July 30th, 2012
(Thank You for your orders and donations! First Edition offer ends Tuesday July 31st www.SOL-Pics.com)
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
June 25th, 2012
What is love? Writers have written and painters have painted and musicians have sung since time immemorial their answer to this question. Which one got it right? Which one came up with the truth about love? They all did, each and every one of them.
When we ask what is love and who got it right, it’s like asking which drop of ocean water is just like the ocean? They all are is the answer. If we could ask every mammal, fish, crustacean and plant in the ocean to describe that thing that surrounds them, that thing that gives them life, that thing that makes their life possible, we would get an infinite number of answers and they would all be right.
We, you and I and all the others, live in a world of love. We are surrounded by love, we breathe love, we eat love, we hear love and we see love. For it is the love of nectar that the honeybee pollinates the flower that becomes our food. It is because of the love of the farmer for her family that she plants our food so that her children will eat and have the money for clothes and education. It is the love of literature that drives the man to become the teacher and share his joy. It is the child’s love of a puppy that takes the animal home from the shelter and brings more love to the family.
There is the love of sweethearts, the love of children, the love of parents, the love of art and music and colors and laughter and rainbows and beaches and mountains and yes, the love of God. We are indeed surrounded by love and yet we feel at times that we have lost it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
How silly would it seem to us if we were to watch a fish in the ocean swimming around trying to find this thing called water. What would you say to it? The same thing God would probably say to you. “Relax, love is all around you. Do not spend your time looking for it but rather spend your time being grateful for being in it. For if you were not in it for even a moment, you would perish. If you exist at all it is because of the love that surrounds you. Enjoy.”
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
May 14th, 2012
How big is your life? You know the size of your room and your height and your waist but what is the size of your life? Is it a big life, one growing with ideas and openness to whatever comes or is it a small life, concerned with surviving and stepping around obstacles and praying nothing bad befalls you?
A big life has very little to do with work and chores and obligations. You can have a small life and still be run ragged with a million things to do. A big life is a life that is filled with trust and faith. It is a life that says “Oh Dear God, I dislike what is happening but I know it is all for the best and I trust you.” It is a life that says ” I am going to make a positive difference in the short time I am alive.”
A small life says “Oh Dear God, please don’t let any problems, health issues or financial or relationship issues negatively affect me or anyone I care about.” It is a life that wants a story book existence (forgetting of course that all story books are about problems that have to be overcome!) so that there will be no need for sleepless nights or soul searching. It is a life that says “I don’t want to give up any of my pleasures but I want the results as if I did.”
Live large! Whatever comes your way, without exception, is helping you to grow. No matter how big your problems, realize that in your pain is an alarm clock. You are being awakened. You are being taken from your slumber and told to remember your dreams and to start making them a reality.
When you decide to live large, you will become a bigger target for fools and problems but the bigger you live, the smaller those things will seem. You are not here to be stopped by your problems but to grow bigger because you encountered them and to step over them and keep going. Whatever problems there are in your life, know that you are as big as you think you are. Think positive, powerful, big thoughts! It’s who you really are.
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
May 7th, 2012
Loss. It hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles. We fear the loss of our life, our friends, loved ones, control, possessions, health, wealth, sanity, love. Come right down to it, we fear loss of any kind. What can we do about it?
Fear of loss is actually a two fold fear. We fear change and we fear our inability to deal with that change. In other words, we don’t think we can handle it. When faced with a thought, a doubt about our own strength during a loss, we search ourselves for the strength to deal with it and it’s not there! Our suspicions are confirmed. We firmly believe at that point that we don’t have the strength to deal with loss and we panic. It’s a lie.
Oh, it’s not a “I didn’t eat the last cookie” type of lie. It is a lie of misunderstanding. If we thought in the summer about how we would handle a winter chill and we looked down and saw ourselves in shorts and flip flops and we freaked because dressed like this we would freeze to death, it would be absurd because when the cold weather comes, we will change. We will do whatever is appropriate to the situation.
When loss of any kind happens to us, we too will change. We will be given the strength to deal with it. We will be given the friends, old or new, to help. We will be given the insight about what to do and when to do it. One of the immutable laws of life is that whatever we truly need will always be given to us when we need it and not one second before. Faith in a Higher Power is not necessary but it does make this so much easier to accept.
When fear of loss pops up in our thoughts, rather than freaking out, it is much wiser and much more empowering to say. “Oh, you again. I’ll be ready for you when and if the time comes. Until then, shut up!” And then go ahead a think a better thought.
(C) 2012 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com