Walking down Cuba with my friend Kelly yesterday afternoon we talked about our frightening realisation that we may never work “normal” jobs again.

Until a year ago I was quite happily resigned to the notion that I would work in an office my whole life. The weekends would be for living and weekdays for working. I planned to be well paid with little responsibility, never having to think very hard for myself. This lazy work life would lend itself well to a fun social life, including marriage, travel, and a mortgage. The prospect of this existence didn’t make me want to curl up and die, it didn’t even feel like my only option. It’s what I wanted!

And then everything changed. I no longer wanted someone telling me what to do. I didn’t care about earning a lot of money, as long as I could pay my bills. My relationship broke up. The thought of being tied to a mortgage became scary. And I realised that I wasn’t the same person any more, I was free of all that. I could live in the moment.

The problem for me and Kelly is that this path is not a usual one in our families, so there is no blueprint for us to follow. We’re making our own rules and it’s quite daunting.

And exciting.