TANGAZA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

CENTRE OF LEADERSHIP OF MANAGEMENT

NAME: Debrah Navajjah

REG. NUMBER: LM88/00028/2022
COURSE CODE: LMC103
COURSE TITLE: Foundations of Adult Learning
LECTURER’S NAME: Sr. Loretta

My Prior Learning Experience

As much as I’ve experienced and encountered a myriad of uniquely filled experiences, there
is only one that I think is worth retelling because of how much impact it had on my life as a
whole.
I always prided myself on my decisiveness. I have never been unsure of myself I always had
goals set and carefully constructed steps to achieve said goals. It was no sweat, I stupidly
thought I had everything under control and will always have them like that, I have never been
so wrong. After I finished my primary school exams, I was left in a rut. The idea of high
school left me so confused and it didn’t help that my marks didn’t get me into the school of
my dreams. Instead I was thrown in some backwater school in the middle of nowhere and oh
how I hated it. I despised myself first for not achieving my goals, I couldn’t wrap my head
around the fact that I was there, it all felt like a never-ending nightmare. I tried all I could to
slowly adapt to the school but I was an incredibly hard-headed individual and no matter what
goodies the school seemed to throw at me I couldn’t or rather wouldn’t accept my situation. I
would rather spend my time with extracurricular activities and try to divert my attention away
from my “predicament”.

In the end against my better judgement I would find myself throwing fits. It was all a show, at
least that was the lie I kept telling myself but I ended up hurting so many of the people
around because I was “suffering” they had to suffer as well that was my messed-up way of
thinking. I was a child, I didn’t know any better, I would like to say but, in all honesty, I was
just being selfish. After a year of the same old routine, my pleas were finally heard and I got
to transfer schools but to a private school in Machakos. The change of pace felt so comforting
to me and I ended up adapting pretty fast. But this comfort I had sought out through this
change proved to be short-lived. As the years went by, the once silent anxiety I had felt years
before came back with a rage. I, for once realised I didn’t know what I wanted. I felt inferior
to my kid self, at least she knew what she wanted, at least she had an end goal and she was
willing to work towards it. I, on the other hand, had never been so confused. I remember
writing a list of all the potential careers that I would like to pursue but none seemed to be a
right fit. But wasn’t it too early to worry? I was sure I would have it figured out by the time I
finished high school.

On the very last day after my final paper, I had never been so relieved. I was done, it was all
over, high school was in the past and I could look forward to the future but what future was
that? What did I have to live for outside school? When my mother came to get me, the same
questions that had been eating away at me, the same questions I had come to avoid learning
their answers was reiterated and I felt tears well up my eyes. Yes, I had to wake up to reality,
I had to figure what it was I really wanted, fast. But even with that realisation, a month
passed and our results were announced, I was excited at the grade I had managed to get
despite the gnawing anxiety and pressure that every student can profess to during their final
year. When the time came to choose a college, I felt like it was but another task I needed to
get out of the way and I remember the number of family subtly pushing their desired
outcomes onto me. I didn’t complain, it was easier to incorporate their wants other than my
jumbled ones.

Somehow despite my couldn’t- care-less attitude, I managed to be called to a good university

in Nairobi, but neither me nor the people around me had neither heard of or could understand
what the course I was called to do required and I discarded it and decided to pursue other
more “palatable” courses such as engineering, but still my heart was never there and
inevitably I gave up on it before I could even start. And then before I could even master any
hopes for my future, COVID-19 hit the entire world and we were all stuck inside. Days came
and went after that with my entire reason for existing slowly dwindling until I came upon
freelancing online and for a while, things started to look up. I had a job that I could use my
writing talents and I enjoyed the days where I would get lost in my own thoughts conjuring
up fantasy worlds that I’d make come alive on paper. It was fun and I couldn’t ask for more
but my family was concerned what would become of me without a degree and before long
once the we could move out of the house, the badgering began, at least at the time that’s what
I felt it was. I didn’t understand why they were so worried and I slowly sank into myself,
slowly falling into a crippling depression.

Work at this point even became a burden and the online courses that I signed myself in, a lie
in itself to quell everyone’s worries, I would eventually give up in the middle or better yet not
even start and I would rarely put myself out the house; I was completely determined to
remain in my bubble. What was the point anyway? Its not like we were financially stable
through the past years, things had somehow gone from bad to worse so I didn’t want to dream
anymore, I didn’t want to hope for anything, I would rather give up on everything that I had
set my eyes on and accept that this was how things ought to go. In the midst of all this, my
family decided to hold an intervention, a few tears were shed and I found myself agreeing for
the sake of it, yes, I would go to college funded by my relatives and that was it. Accept
kindness while it’s given, even when its ill-deserved, this was a saying I had never thought
about but now it hang over my head and wouldn’t go away. I felt unworthy of everyone’s
kindness and with that guilt came the urge to work hard, I would work hard so that I would
feel worthy.

But as time passed so did that toxic mentality come to pass as well. I came across a self-help
book, which prior to this I had been avoiding because in my eyes I had grouped all so-called
self-help books as being nothing but generic and clichéd advice packaged in expensive paper
back. But this time for some reason this book drew me in and I began delving into it page by
page completely and utterly mesmerised and there was one quote that did it for me, that lifted
this weight I had carried on my back for as long as I could remember, it said; “You do not
owe your childhood self, anything, but you do owe your adult self, something, at least.” And
once I read that I could heave a sigh of relief, with only a few words I had been set free. Now,
I could look upon my life with a fresh new perspective and accept myself as I was, I could
build my own idea of success without being burdened by what society expects of me. I was
slowly learning to be open minded and accept thing as they were, accept the feelings and
emotions I can control and accept myself whole heartedly as a person. I can’t honestly say
that I have already accepted the way I am but I am trying my level best to get there, slowly
but surely.