Where HUNGER Leads

<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/file_000000008860620abd25510f31f84131.png" style="background-color: transparent;" alt="">My father used to tell me that back in the days, poverty was a key element to success, and hunger was a tool to stay motivated—to keep grinding, to keep reaching for something better. He believed that when you had nothing, every small win felt like a step toward something greater. Hunger kept your feet moving, even when the road was long and uncertain. It wasn’t just about food or money—it was about ambition, about fire. About waking up every morning with a reason to fight, because survival wasn't guaranteed, and comfort was a luxury nobody he knew could afford. He would sit me down at the kitchen table—never fancy, just worn wood and a few mismatched chairs—and say, “Comfort makes people soft. Hunger teaches you to hustle.” To him, struggle wasn't something to be pitied. It was something sacred. A crucible that forged strength, resilience, and clarity. “When your stomach growls,” he said, tapping his chest, “your heart listens. You remember what you want and why you started.” I used to think he was being dramatic. Maybe even romanticizing the hardship he had to endure. But the older I get, the more I understand what he meant. There’s a kind of focus that comes when life strips away distractions—when the only direction is forward because going back means surrendering to the same conditions you vowed to escape. My father didn’t see poverty as a weakness. He saw it as a beginning. Not something to glorify, but something to rise from. A furnace that burns away laziness and leaves only determination behind. He told me stories of working double shifts with holes in his shoes, saving every coin, skipping meals so his younger siblings could eat. How he watched others fall into bitterness, while he let the hunger sharpen his instincts.He told me stories of how he lost both his parents and how he sent himself to school without any support. Going from one car wash to another just to make a living. He turned the pain into a plan. And that’s what he tried to teach me—not just to survive discomfort, but to use it. To turn it into momentum. To let it remind me of what’s possible when there’s nothing left to lose. Now, whenever I feel lost or tired or ready to quit, I think about those conversations. I remember the way his voice never shook when he spoke about struggle. Not because it didn’t hurt—but because he had learned how to carry it with pride. Hunger didn’t just feed his ambition. It built his future.

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