1. Want to be famous? Put determination where your mouth is
A friend of mine is a famous sportsman. Years ago, he remarked to me that almost everybody wants to have done something amazing – have run a marathon, have played in the World Cup, have had a No 1 record, have written a book, but very few people are prepared to put in the years of hard work or painful training to get there.
It’s true. When I was growing up in Africa, I was obsessed with being famous. I didn’t really care what I was being famous for. I wanted to be a famous event rider or a famous artist or a famous pop singer. It’s only when I became a journalist and was part of the system that made other people famous that I realised that being famous is the last thing anyone would want to be. I mean, have you read Grazia or Heat recently? Would you really want to unable to pick up a pint of milk at Tesco without having some snotty reporter commenting that you’ve piled on weight or that your hair’s a mess?
It’s much more worthwhile to aim to be the best you possibly can at whatever you want to do. The great thing about the internet is that now you can do that even if your family has no money or you live in the middle of nowhere. Say you want to be a famous eventer, like Casey in my One Dollar Horse series. If you can’t afford a horse or even a share of a horse and if there are no stables nearby, you can still spend hours on Youtube watching instruction videos or demonstrations on horse whispering. If you want to be a famous singer, you can spend hundreds of hours watching videos on technique or vocal training. You can succeed at almost anything in life, with or without support, but you have to put the work in.
2. Rules are there for a reason but don’t be afraid to question them
In my Laura Marlin mysteries, Laura questions everything that grownups tell her because she’s figured out that they have a habit of saying no to things often for absolutely no reason. I actually think that’s true more often than not. In my experience, if you question things politely, people will often stop to consider whether or not what you’re asking for is reasonable. If it is, they’ll agree. However, if you’re rude and aggressive in life, you’ll find that doors are slammed in your face over and over. There are plenty of ridiculous rules and systems in the world and it’s perfectly reasonable to challenge things. Learn to think laterally. On the whole, people have a herd mentality. Be the person who asks why – politely. More often than not you’ll be rewarded for it.
3. Fight for your right to have free time
If you’re finding that your life is a hectic whirl of studying and extra maths and piano lessons and that you barely have time to breathe, you might need to have a serious talk to the grownups in your life. Childhood is over far too quickly and once you’re an adult daydreaming time is in short supply. Fight for your right to chill out and not be a robot that spends every waking hour studying and doing homework and extra curricular activities. That doesn’t mean that your parents should grant you freedom to spend hours talking nonsense on Facebook, playing video games or surfing the internet. Much as I love all of those things (well, not video games but Twitter and surfing the internet), I always get the feeling that they’re siphoning the marrow out of my bones. I’m talking about the freedom to empty your mind and daydream. Lie on the grass and stare up the stars or the sky or be in nature. Walk. Climb a mountain or even a small hill. Read a book. Paint a picture. Relax. Chill.
4. Fight for the right to read at your leisure
When I was growing up I read so much that I used to drive my parents a bit mad because I never heard anything they said to me. As soon as I opened a book, I just became completely absorbed in that world. An earthquake could have taken place and I’d have been unlikely to notice. But several recent articles in the New Scientist magazine have confirmed that I was completely right to read as much as I did. Two major neurological studies have shown that reading allows you to experience dangerous or challenging situations in a safe space and helps you cope with difficult emotional situations too. In a way, reading is a rehearsal for life. As one scientist put it, reading trains you in the art of being human.
Much more importantly, reading teaches you empathy and compassion. Right now our world is in a bit of a mess. There are lots of great things happening. We’re on the brink of curing cancer and Elon Musk is building electric supercars, but our natural world is being devastated by man’s greed and climate change, and millions of refugees are fleeing war and uncertainty. Reading helps us all understand people and animals in desperate situations and makes us want to be part of the solution, not the problem.
5. The freedom to steer towards fear
Katherine Rundell, author of The Wolf Wilder, told the Guardian recently that there is a lot of joy to be had in learning to steer towards fear, not away from it. She should know. She tightrope walks and hangs out with wolves. Health & Safety regulations and terror of Stranger Danger means that, for a lot of children, the world has become very small. When I was growing up in Africa during a war, my mum and dad considered me to be safe as long as I was within the boundaries of our 1,000 acre farm, even though it was a place packed with poisonous snakes, crocodiles and we could potentially be shot at any time. I rode my horse on my own through the bush almost every day that I wasn’t at school.
Nowadays, those freedoms are not possible for most children. The world is a different place. However, if you allow fear to get the better of you, you’ll find that your world shrinks accordingly. The easiest way to change that is to tackle things you find physically daunting. For instance, if you’re not very athletic and physical things scare you, try something that takes you a bit out of your comfort zone like karate or rollerblading. Yoga and pilates are also really amazing. If there are no classes near you or at your school, there are plenty of free classes on the internet. You can buy secondhand hit really cheaply on Ebay and other sites. Start slowly and gradually build up. Be kind to yourself. You’ll find that it makes a huge difference to your emotional courage. I took up boxing a couple of months ago and that’s been my experience. I also found the same thing when I took up rollerblading. Don’t rely on other people to give you physical freedom. Find it in your own way.
Lauren St John recently gave the prestigious Patrick Hardy lecture on the topic In Defence of Childhood Freedoms. Lauren was born in Zimbabwe and grew up on a farm. After studying journalism in Harare, she moved to England and worked as a journalist before writing the award-winning White Giraffe and One Dollar Horse series. Dead Man’s Cove, the first in her mystery series featuring 11-year-old detective Laura Marlin, who lives in St Ives, Cornwall, won the 2011 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award. Her latest books are the horse novel The Glory and Operation Rhino.
