We necessarily spend the first part of our lives learning to hold back so we can fit in with the family and culture into which we’re born.

Even our rebellions are usually, in one way or another, defined by this (a reaction against what’s around us rather than something truly new).

So our responsibility in adulthood is to work out how to give up holding ourselves back so that the life that we are – creative, flowing, responsive – can be expressed and so that we can make the contribution that is ours to bring.

And this perhaps is the biggest and most important work any adult, and anyone who wants to lead or touch the lives of others, can take on.