Mature & Balanced

When I was applying to four top American Colleges in 2006, I had one of my high school teachers describe me in a recommendation letter as "an exceptionally caring, mature and balanced young man who would add to your school in many ways". I borrowed that phrase in quotes from an informative book titled How to Get into the Top Colleges which I didn't read in full. As it happened, I wasn't accepted into any of the colleges.

Looking back, I don't think I was a mature and balanced young man. If I had been, I wouldn't have stopped attending classes at the university in JKUAT without communicating with my family. I honestly don't know what was going on in my head as I hung around JKUAT while my family worried sick about me - an immaturity I exhibited again in 2011 when I was at the University of Nairobi.

After I left the University of Nairobi in 2011, I continued behaving immaturely. Believe me when I tell you that I had a habit of running away from home whenever my family members failed to fulfil my demands, forgetting they too were having challenges of their own.

One Friday night in 2011 or 2012 for instance, I slept outside on our farm because of a disturbing issue I have forgotten. All I remember is me lying to Mum that I was from church when I went back to our house early the following morning. Quick to discern that I was lying, Mum replied that I had been sleeping outside. She went ahead to complain to me that she would doze during the day while selling stuff at her grocery because of me having caused her a sleepless night.

Probably as a result of the way I had caused Mum a sleepless night, I felt terribly guilty that Saturday. It was like the whole world was rebuking me. When I went to church at All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi later on in the day, I unburdened my guilt to a friend of mine called Jack who did nothing to assuage my feelings.

Then on another Friday in 2014, I tried to organize a family meeting to discuss how we could make productive use of our land. I kept sending messages to my family that Friday and when it became apparent to me in the early hours of the Friday night that they were unwilling to attend my meeting, I went to sleep outside, leaving our sick Mum all alone in the house. On going back to the house at around 11.00pm of that same night, I found my kid brother Symo unhappy with me. Symo thought it had been very immature of me to leave Mum alone. And he was right.

As I reflect further on my life in the past ten years, I have uncovered several other instances when I behaved immaturely such as when I gloated over the tribulations facing James Karanja Maina, a former schoololmate in high school. Karanja was put on the newspapers on a certain day in 2014 in a notice warning the public that he was no longer an employee of Keroche Breweries. Karenja's tribulations must have escalated as he was brutally murdered a year or two later.

Then there have been times I have judged others harshly, reacted in anger over minor issues, meddled with some of my friend's affairs, worried over little things, allowed others to hurt my feelings and sent abusive messages to friends. An immature young man I have been.

Now that I have grown wiser, I am striving to be the mature and balanced young man that I had one of my teachers say of me in the recommendation letters I sent to American colleges in 2006. I am endeavouring to conduct my affairs responsibly, to empathize with other people's suffering and to listen to criticism without allowing it to affect my inner peace.

I urge all young people out there to also behave in a mature and balanced manner. And for teenagers still living with their parents - I implore you not to be too hard on your parents when they fail to live upto your expectations. Understand parents are people too. They also have pressures. While you're worrying about your friends, they're worrying about their bosses. Like you, they have days when they get offended at work. They sometimes cry; they get their feelings hurt; and they don't always have their act together, just like me and you. So mature up and understand them.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story on being mature and balanced, you might also enjoy another one I wrote last year on "Maturing Up". Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.