When my mom’s side of the family moved to the US, my mother was 14, and her brothers were 9 and 7. My grandparents came to own a low-end motel (and “low-end” is being quite generous), with my mother and uncles as “employees” that cleaned hotel rooms. They were, quite simply, poor - in addition to being brown in small-town South Carolina.

What happened next is a remarkable reflection of the culture they were a part of. My mother, the eldest child, was going to go to college, but her father essentially forced her to stay nearby. She attended Francis Marion University, which you have probably never heard of before, and majored in something that entailed spending some amount of time at the library (which my grandfather would call to verify). Culture had dictated her fate, via her parents. Her brothers were allowed to study at the University of South Carolina and at Emory University. One of them pursued a medical career, doing a residency at Johns Hopkins, a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, and soon after became a spinal surgeon at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail. I don’t know much about medicine, but I am assured that this is VERY impressive. The other joined PwC out of college, and then quit after a few years to start his own hotel business with my father. Today, both uncles and my father are quite successful, at least the way that most people use the word. [1]

This past weekend, I was at a wedding in Kansas City for a second cousin that I didn’t recall meeting. It was time for the reception, but I wasn’t feeling very social, so I stepped outside with my father and my uncle and sipped on my drink. We had all taken direct flights from Houston to Kansas City, which for some reason was the conversation topic of the moment - being able to spend the money on the more convenient option and not having to scrounge pennies together. At some point, one of them said the three magic words that every immigrant wants to say at some point: Well, it’s okay to spend the money… we made it.

Indeed, they had. There’s a hunger that being born into that position gives you [2]; it’s something that I, for better or worse, don’t have. On one hand, the way I grew up is leaps and bounds better than the way that my mother did; the flip side is that hunger is a very particular asset that is hard to replicate. At BCG, it’s rare to find anyone with that hunger - most people have grown up privileged [3]; I’ve only met one person so far whose life story reminds me of my mother’s and uncle’s. There’s little similarity in the stories themselves - just the hunger that I’ve heard in his voice.

I’m 25, working at a Very Good Job by most people’s definition. Indeed, my life is probably beyond what my parents could have hoped to provide for me. I don’t have the same degree of hunger - which is probably evident from other writings on this website about charity, goals I’m setting in my life beyond “make a shitton of money”, random musings on my career from Good Will Hunting, and the Mexican Fisherman parable. Is that a problem? In my view, no - I think the traditional definition of “success” misses quite a bit - but it does hint at a fundamental shift in values from one generation to another.

[1] As far as I know, this is true, but at some level it doesn’t even matter if it’s true; the story has taken on a life of its own.

[2] You don’t necessary need to be born into a disadvantaged position to have the hunger; my focus on my uncles’ backgrounds here is merely to highlight the most relevant cause for their particular scenario.

[3] My old roommate’s hunger was less about accumulating wealth and much more about excelling in his work; likewise, the drive to be excellent is decently common at BCG. I’m definitely conflating the two here, which muddies things.