During my first days at Starehe in January 2002 and before we commenced our high school studies, I recall feeling terribly bored after breakfast. With no studies and duties to attend to, I would sit on a bench waiting for the morning parade bell to ring. I must have cut a confused and forlorn figure as I sat on the benches.
But once we began our high school studies, I got absorbed in a quest to excel in academics. That quest kept me occupied throughout my years at Starehe. And Starehe weaned us on a rigid diet of tests and examinations. The school gave us tests even over lunch hour breaks. That culture of academic rigour, coupled with the brilliant students I was learning along with, made me study a lot to fulfill my desire to excel academically. I was so hard-working that I never fell asleep during classes.
By the time I was leaving Starehe in April 2007 after pursuing my high school and college education, I had been moulded into a hard-working young man. My diligent nature was apparent in the way I juggled studies, work and choir attendance when I was a first year student at the university in JKUAT in 2007. And trust me, the engineering course I was pursuing at JKUAT was no joke.
Then came November 2008. In that month, after being discharged from JKUAT hospital where I had been diagnosed with a mental illness, I lost the motivation for rising early to do some studies. Even worse, I began dozing during the day. There were days I would stay in bed till late in the morning.
When I repeated my second year at JKUAT in 2009, I would oversleep on some days. A caring classmate of mine named Patrick Weru would get concerned when I was late for class. And one lecturer, who taught us Material Science, would repeatedly tease me for nodding off in his class. Owing to my lack of motivation, I eventually dropped out of JKUAT in 2009.
Under pressure to get a degree, I matriculated at the University of Nairobi (UoN) in September 2010 to pursue a less demanding course. And wa! The ghosts of oversleeping kept haunting me. One morning, for instance, an arrogant and snobbish professor threatened to throw me out of his class if I continued slumbering during his lectures.
On another morning during my time at UoN, I fell asleep in a matatu while commuting to the university for a class; I woke up, only to be told by the conductor that the matatu was making its return journey from Nairobi.
After dropping out of UoN in April 2011 because of financial constraints, I had recurring battles with oversleeping. Thankfully, I have managed to get out of bed before 7:00 a.m. for the past two years. But I still struggle with staying alert and active during the day. Often when a delicious languor steals over me when I am seated on my desk or travelling in a matatu, I usually fold my hands, lean on my chair and take a nap.
Now, the Bible warns us several times against oversleeping and dozing during the day. It puts it this way in Proverbs 6:10-11:
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.That warning in the Bible against oversleeping has made me resolve to regain the spirit of hard work and diligence that Starehe inculcated in me. And if I managed to stay alert and active throughout my Starehe years, I believe I can do even better these days, now that I am healthier and more knowledgeable.
My beloved reader, I implore you to also practise the virtue of diligence if you want to be genuinely successful. As someone wisely said, hard work has never killed anyone. And if you find yourself regularly snoozing during the day, it is not that you are lazy; it is just that you haven't found your passion. Belated happy Labour Day!
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on practising diligence, you might also enjoy another one on "Rising Early Every Day" which I wrote about an year ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
