“I was working in an elementary school as an assistant language teacher. Sometimes they let me do things that I could create, and the rest of the time I just did what they told me to do.

consider what you were obsessively doing before you were ten years old.

What if every child believed that being “good” at a sport or activity—football, badminton, or ballet; break dancing, skateboarding, or curling; fencing, jumping rope, or juggling—means that you enjoy doing it?

We had a sense of duty from an early age, because my father, Jan, made us work in his shop, even for a large part of the holidays. Initially I thought it unfair, having to work while everyone else could gallivant on their wide-rimmed bicycles, but later I realised how valuable it was, compared with the nonsense of the so-called gap year that pupils