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Strange title for a blog. I can’t claim the credit. Siri came up with it this morning.
I asked Siri to play “My favourites shuffled on Apple Music”. Instead, with complete confidence, Siri replied it was playing the song:
“Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm.”
If ever I needed proof that my speech isn’t always recognised as clearly as I’d like these days, there it was.
Ironically, Siri’s mistake turned out to be a gift. It was a great song I haven’t heard for a long time by Chris Rea. It followed with a Sting song that is actually one of my favourites, beginning with the words, “You could say I’ve lost my faith in science…” Somehow, that felt like a rather ironic soundtrack for someone writing a PSP blog.
That wasn’t the only battle of the morning. I also found myself wrestling with a packet of eye wipes. I spent years in consulting learning just how important product design and customer experience really are. This morning I became convinced that nobody involved in designing this particular packet had ever tried opening one with sore eyes or impaired vision. I searched for the opening, turned it over, squinted at it, tried again and became steadily more frustrated.
In the end, I gave up and went for soap and water instead.
Then came my morning Gabapentin, the medication that helps keep my nerve pain under control. Whoever decided that a 400 mg tablet should be large, long, thick and coloured somewhere between dark chocolate and mud clearly wasn’t thinking about people swallowing tablets at 5:30 in the morning, especially someone with three to take. It may do me a lot of good, but it has to be one of the least appetising ways to start the day.
By this point, the morning was definitely feeling half empty.
Then something rather ordinary happened. The espresso kicked in, although not before reminding me that the machine was full and needed emptying, another one of those little jobs nobody enjoys. I then found another packet of eye wipes that opened exactly as it should.
The music carried on playing. Somehow, everything felt just a little lighter. Within minutes, I found myself smiling. And only a few minutes later, the AI dictation software on my Mac understood almost every word I said as I dictated this blog. Clearly Siri and Apple’s dictation don’t always hear the same person. As they say in football, it was a game of two halves.
Nothing about my PSP had changed. My speech hadn’t suddenly become clearer. My eyes were still giving me trouble. The tablets hadn’t become any smaller.
But my outlook had changed completely.
It’s remarkable how quickly life can move from half empty to half full. Sometimes all it takes is an espresso, medication beginning to work, and a good song.
We often wait for the big moments to lift our spirits. This morning reminded me that, more often than not, it’s the little moments that quietly do the job.
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm.
