A whole lot of great music!!

My podcast app is a shambles. Some things download but then don’t. They are there, but then they disappear. My favourites have gone, and the latest update has screwed up so much that it is not even enjoyable to try and find my way to the podcast I want to listen to.

It may well be the fact that I live in China, and some things do not always get through the great digital wall in china. However,

You would think the VPN would help…

Nope, it makes even more of a mess of the podcast downloads, and I get fifty-odd all queued up to download, but then nothing.

This is not at all peachy. Sort it out, for goodness sake. With your billions in the bank and your ability to buy in any talent, how hard can it be to produce a working app?

Should I persevere?

I will but, but not today. My patience is low, and my perseverance was not for fixing something but for consuming something. I want to tune in and then tune out on this walk, and the hope that I could have done that with a good podcast was dashed.

So I am going on a different path. I clicked through to my downloaded music, found the downloaded songs and played music on shuffle.

Today, on my thirty-minute walk to work, I switched my mind back to music and to compliment that, I changed my well-worn path. I took a different road into work and passed things I had forgotten that were there. I seen different faces, and I walked with a spring in my step even though the burnt orange leaves of autumn were littering the sidewalk of the back roads that I danced along.

A lot of great music filled my ears, and instinctively, the music app knew what I was looking for in my music choice. 

First up was Pink Floyd, then Radiohead, Paolo Nutini, Rolling Stones and some Adele that I quickly skipped. It wasn’t an Adele kind of morning, and even the best apps can glitch. It was a morning for being alive and appreciating all the fine things in life, even though the morning struggle with a simple podcast had set it up for a sluggish start.

I was not having it. Sometimes, when things get in your way, you have to push past them. Some days the obstacles can be enormous, and other days, they can be small in size and stature, but everything is relevant. Context is often everything, yet we often leave the detail out and focus on the stuck point and allow that to torment us. You always get the best reward when you manage to get past the obstacle, over, through, or around it. That feeling of satisfaction that makes the struggle worthwhile. The moment of success, no matter how small, has a way of lifting you up and escorting you onto that next level.

What a blissful walk. 

Many mediums can get you past the obstacle, and music is one of them. And this morning, it was a timely intervention, and it was hitting all the right highs to keep me striding on…

…and then it happened. That one track that just makes it all worthwhile. The signal that I had gotten past the obstacle, and I was enjoying the moment again.

Drive, by R.E.M. 

Have you ever heard a song that has made you want to stop what you are doing and stand in the wind with your arms out wide, eyes closed and just listen? That song, that moment, where you think the word should just stop and listen along with you as the tune plays through to the end.

‘Maybe you rock around the clock

Tick, tock, tick, tock

Maybe I ride, maybe you walk

Maybe I drive to get off, baby

Hey kids, where are you?

Nobody tells you what to do, baby

Hey kids, rock and roll

Nobody tells you where to go baby’

Can you hear it? Can you feel the moment… I guess context is everything, but you do recognise the feeling of overcoming something, no matter how trivial – you know that feeling, right?

You have felt that connection. Where everything feels perfect for that moment in time because you got there. 

Because you persevered.

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