Slaying the Dragon of Guilt

My beloved reader, suppose you felt some discomfort somewhere inside your stomach and when the discomfort persists for two weeks, you visit a doctor to find out what's wrong. The doctor examines you and discovers that your pancreas has a cancerous growth. And then he drops on you this bombshell: you have six months to live since the cancer is too advanced to be cured.

Now tell me, what would you do next after receiving that bombshell? As for me, I would start writing a book titled "My Last Lecture" in which I would pour out my advice to youngsters, telling them what constitutes a good life other than having a job and a family. And that's developing a lifelong passion for learning and building a network of supportive friends.

As part of my last lecture book, I would make it known to youngsters that guilt is one of the negative emotions they will grapple with in their adult life. I would tell them about the time I first experienced guilt; that was roughly nine years ago when I was at the university in JKUAT. Since then, I have had recurring bouts of guilt in my soul.

At one time in late 2010 for instance, I was struck by a guilt complex after I went for choir practice at All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi on a Saturday. Imagine I felt so guilty that Saturday that I couldn't withstand being seen on the streets of Nairobi on my way back home. It was like I was running away from people who weren't chasing me.

To tell you the truth, I have never done anything sinister to warrant the dozens of times I have felt guilty over the last seven years. I have never abused someone physically or conned anyone out of their money. Neither have I ever engaged in violence, robbery or murder.

Maybe the guilt I have felt has been God's way of punishing me for the pain I caused my family when I misbehaved at JKUAT in 2008 and again when I messed up at the University of Nairobi in 2011. Those are the only satanic sins I have committed in my life so far. Otherwise, as I have said, I have never oppressed anyone or swindled someone out of their money.

Over the past four months since the new year began, I have been at peace with myself most of the times. But something happened in the past two weeks that revealed the dragon of guilt is yet to die in me completely. I felt guilty several times last week - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified guilt which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

A few years ago, I read in a local daily of one columnist named Chris Hart advising us that we acknowledge and embrace our weaknesses. That sounds like a great weapon of slaying the dragon of guilt that has been alive in me since 2009.

Let me therefore make my main weakness known to the whole world. And that's my tendency to oversleep whenever I have nothing to look forward to the following day. I can get terribly lazy by sleeping from 7:00 p.m. at night to 1:00 p.m. the following day like I did yesterday.

Because I usually oversleep whenever I have nothing to look forward to, I am thinking the best way to remedy that weakness is by posting a story regularly on this lovely blog which has brought meaning and purpose to my life. So as from now henceforth, God willing, I will be consistently posting stories on this blog for you to read.

By the way, I am always delighted and very delighted indeed to see from my blog statistics that people all over the world do take time to read the stories I share on this blog. People from as far as Australia to Canada, from Peru to Japan, from South Africa to Denmark, from Great Britain to India.

Thank you, my beloved reader (yes, you!), for being among those who delight me. Without people like you who visit my blog, I would be having nothing to look forward to on most days. For that reason, please rush to a restaurant near you and order any meal you like. And when they ask you to pay, tell them I sent you!

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2ND EDITION: I edited my autobiography which is accessible by clicking the "About" link on the menu at the top and at the bottom of this blog. Click it to read an updated account of my life.