Next year, for various reasons, I’m looking at losing a chunk of my income. As you can imagine this has kept me awake at night, and fuelled panic-driven planning sessions and generally making me run around like a headless chicken. Things are going to be tight, I may have to sell my house, my children already don’t have enough clothes and other things they need. It’s a scary place to be. But maybe, it’s really an opportunity. Maybe I’m now in a position to say – what do I have to lose? Things haven’t worked out so well following the conventional set of rules for life – an underpaid job simply because I needed a job, keeping my head down, not striving for too much, certainly not daring to wonder why I shouldn’t I do what I really want in case someone tells me I’ve no right to think so highly of myself. So what do I have to lose? Nothing. Any way I look at it, I can only gain. If I let myself have big dreams, if I strive to be creative every day of my life, if I do the things I know I really want to, then I’m only going to benefit. Opportunities will come, excitement and satisfaction. I just have to be brave enough and trust that I can make it work – through sheer gutsy hard work, and a determination to treat life as an adventure. I’ve had enough of keeping quiet in my life. I don’t have to go shouting from rooftops to all my neighbours, but I do need to stop limiting myself and let myself have some fun. So what if some of my ideas are crazy? At least they’ll be interesting. At least I’ll get up in the morning and think, another day, another opportunity. It sounds fun, don’t you think?