Friday 14th 2014. A day of flowers, saccharine cards and proclamations of love. Also the day of my first driving test. Did I pass? No, I didn’t. Does it matter? No, it does not. Though had you asked me moments afterwards you may have had your ears boxed by a tantrum so florid you may have questioned your sanity. Surely a 25 year old woman should not stomp her feet quite so loudly up the stairs in the manner of a three year old that has been refused a second slice of cake.

Really the anger came from a slight hypocrisy that came out during the feedback. One of those, and I’m quoting what was actually said here “You and I know that everyone does it, it doesn’t cause accidents, even I do it sometimes BUT I’m going to have to fail you for it.” Ouch.

So the new beginning in my title actually started with a failure. However I am aware that all the best stories do. Odysseus wouldn’t have gone on his journey, if he’d just stayed in Ithaca, not battled a wooden horse and shied away from large one-eyed men.

The other day I was at an evening of talks which had sprung out of a group of freelancers and creatives who live in my area. One of these talks was entitled ‘Prototyping Happiness’ by a lovely chap called Michael Mentessi. In it he spoke about setting goals and small successes before you set out on any task. Using your life as the ultimate product of your engineering. One thing that stuck in my mind was to do with Richard Dyson who before releasing the first ever Dyson went through 5127 prototypes, 14 years of debt and a few lawsuits to boot!

So rather than my “new beginning” being one of complete success and perfection. My new beginning is one of slight failure and frustration. Would I change that? Never.