To tell you the truth, I have been worse than the youngsters who think movie stars are superhuman people. I am saying so because I have thought of myself as a demigod. Not that I have worshipped myself or something. It is that I have had delusions of grandeur that have led me to withdraw from reality.
In 2008 for instance, I stopped attending classes at JKUAT and hung around the university, reading and daydreaming. When a classmate informed me that the university authorities had gone to our class and inquired where I was, I asked him, "Why are they looking for the living among the dead?"
Still on that time I stopped attending classes at JKUAT, I saw a number of policemen at the university on one Sunday. Seeing the police made me think that time had come for me to be elevated to a higher status in our nation. Afterwards, I gathered that the policemen were preparing for a visit by Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, the then Kenya's Vice President.
You know what? A few weeks later, I was remanded in a police cell for hanging around the university and then taken to hospital where I was diagnosed with a mental illness. So my earlier thoughts that I was to be elevated to a higher status in our nation were delusions of grandeur.
Even after being treated for a mental illness, I continued pretending to be somebody when, in fact, I was a nobody. There was a time, for example, when I emailed my friends and lied to them that I had been invited to give a speech in a certain school. What a moron I was!
For sure, I was a moron given the way I wasted my brainpower imagining things that might never happen, like people watching me on TV as I addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Mark you, I was wallowing in such fantasies when I should have been working.
But I have learnt my lesson. These days, I like being real, thinking constructive thoughts and engaging in meaningful hobbies. I have taken to heart the following advice of St. Paul in Romans 12:3:
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.That sagacious advice of St. Paul has encouraged me to exorcise from my mind delusions of grandeur that have had a tendency of popping up in my mind during my moments of excitement. It has also made me stop thinking of myself as a demigod.
Actually, I am not a demigod. Much as I am different, I am like other people. I live in the same world as them, face the same challenges they grapple with, need to sleep for at least six hours each night like them, and have to work hard like them in order to earn the riches of this life.
My beloved reader, I beseech you to also refrain from thinking you are a demigod, no matter how attractive, educated, talented or wealthy you are. Trust me, you are like other people and you need their company. Therefore, think soberly of yourself. That's all I am saying. Sayonara!
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on thinking soberly of ourselves, you might also enjoy another one on "Why We Should Be Humble" which I wrote last year. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
