Prologue

If you could rewrite the past, would you? 
Would you rewind and set the wrongs right? 
How frequently would you make amendments and at what point would you be happy with the results? 
When would enough be good enough and when would it all simply be ENOUGH? 

This was the pop quiz playing in my head after I watched About Time starring Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams (still looking exactly as she did in The Notebook – what pill is she taking?). The story is of a young man who, on his 21st birthday discovers that he has the ability to travel in time. As you’d probably guess, the movie naturally revolves around him constantly and conveniently going back to the past to improve his future. 

Similarly in the sense that both depict the tale of having 100% control of your future is a movie called Ruby Sparks where a young author, battling with his romance life, writes his ideal girlfriend to life; she is and does exactly what he wants – how’s that for “ticking all the boxes”?

As cool as it sounds, if a genie were to appear to me tomorrow, none of my three wishes would be wasted on time travel. I believe that everything that happens in our lives occurs exactly when it’s meant to. To tamper with life in that manner would simply be a disservice to really living.

You know you often hear about how people who've worked in corporate suddenly "find their music" and leave their handsomely paying jobs to open a cake shop or travel to Africa in efforts to stop hunger, and perhaps adopt a poor African child or two? For me my music was not found outside of corporate but rather in a different industry. 

One of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make has been an oxymoron because it was also the easiest – taking the plunge and making a drastic career switch to do exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. I tried this in my first year of working and again in my second year but as time would have it; it just wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t until I was well into my third year that the time seemed ripe, ironically this was when I was starting to get comfortable in my role. I was on a progressive path, I worked for an awesome company with amazing people and amazing brands but I just recall sitting in a strategy meeting for a new product launch thinking, "does the world really need another biscuit?!". Because that's what's it's all about right? Branding, regardless of what your product is, is centred within finding "the next big thing" but the next big thing is usually a slight variation of the existing BIG thing be it new packaging, new flavours, new features; we're really just…reinventing the wheel. Not to knock Marketing but as much as it came naturally to me, it really wasn’t something I wanted to wake up to five days a week, I had to make a U-turn – and so I entered the wonderful world of banking. The end goal was always either a taste of Wall Street or Canary Wharf, how, I had no idea but it was going to happened one way or another.

Investment Banking is certainly not like the movies but I’m pretty sure that there’s a doctor out there who chose their career thinking everyday life would be like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs. But as far removed from what Hollywood has sold us, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, no need to go back to the past, no need to re-write the script. 

I look back at 2014 and am grateful for every experience, the ups and the downs of starting over. The biggest downside of it is age-centric because well at certain ages we're expected to be at certain points in our lives. When I resigned from my previous company, one of my managers even sternly reminded me that I was not getting any younger, I nodded in feign acknowledgement but in my head I was thinking and that’s is exactly why I’m doing this.
 
Yes, of course it takes you back because you know your peers are going to continue to climb the ladder you once started together but it also teaches you to focus on your own path. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a corner office 10 years from now wondering what it would’ve been like had I followed my heart. I wanted to find out immediately and I knew that putting it off would not make this any less desirable and well, you know what they say; it’s better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than halfway up one you have no desire to.

A lot of people were concerned, a lot doubted and others asked me what I’d do if I did the move and realised that the grass wasn’t greener but for me it wasn’t even about the colour of the grass but rather taking the risk and then living to tell the tale, happy ending or tragic. My tale hasn’t even started yet, the year 2014 was just the prologue.