By Jan Vicente ‘JV’ B. Pekas
I have come to learn, while in college, the inevitability of being hungry when going to class and being hungry again when leaving. In the daily quest of traveling to school for early attendance, breakfast is often sacrificed when waking up a bit late. Though the skipping helps with the attendance, it does make it harder to retain information. And it overall just harms my performance in class. It makes it hard to think and be creative.
At times when I have an empty stomach I find it hard to remember my own grandiose dreams, in contrast to having a full stomach when my ambitions would drift from one place to another relentlessly. Although in the past, I have seen wonders in terms of what this body can do even when hungry. Nevertheless, a car can only be pushed so far without fuel. The limits of the body is not something simple to be pushed beyond carelessly.
A body without fuel will only look forward to the day’s end. Hunger makes it hard to enjoy the rest of the day. I even find myself getting nervous easily. And all negative emotions seemingly feed on this empty stomach and get stronger.
After too many days, it gets tiring having to survive a class while being hungry. It turns out, when you force yourself to work outside the limits, days simply don’t get better, you yourself don’t get any better.
But like how food is necessary to fuel our every movement, knowledge too is important in fueling self-improvement. Thanks to our “bakasyon”, we can revert back to a normal lifestyle, something a bit harder to attain during finals. With a sense of normalcy, we can always revert to previous healthier lifestyles and have time to eat and read a book.
But in the middle of a semester, the adjustments simply have to be made on the spot, if we wish to improve from our wrong habits.
Each day is limited when going at it hungry. We impose a limit to what we can do when we choose to go out hungry. There is simply no need to do that when we can live out our lives to its full potential instead. Eating is a task necessary for survival and growth.
In contrast to a meager attendance with no energy to learn, it becomes more worth it to eat instead and have the energy to make the most of the time left.
Because no matter how many days I have barely gotten to class in time due to skipping breakfast, I always learned the most in a day when I ate something first thing in the morning.
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