When I explain to people it is better to be positive rather than negative about their lives, especially other disabled people, their response is often to inform me that I am lucky like that somehow explains my positivity away like I am uniquely privilege.

I believe I have had a fantastic life so and I have been fortunate in the opportunities I have been able to take advantage off, but they are no more than so many other people. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I have never escaped the daily and subtle discrimination that has made life interesting for me. Also, as someone with a life long impairment who can never escape from the labels other put in me, I had to earn my social capital as a disabled people, not come into disability with non-disabled social capital, like friends and colleagues.

But I have chosen, or rather I have always been, positive about my situation, seeing what I have and not what I have not. The luck I have is the luck I have created for myself by smiling where others frown. And smiling is what will get people through the current changes with the welfare reforms.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at http://www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74