Midnight duel

It was a long and quiet night, like I was in the library; the kind of silence you only get when everyone in the house is asleep. I was at the kitchen table, then I moved to the living room, and ended up in my room. Papers were gathered everywhere. The clock kept going and going. Ten o’clock passed, eleven, and I was still stuck on the same math problem without any idea of how to solve it. It didn’t even feel like math anymore; it felt like it was laughing at me and waiting for me to quit. The answer key was next to me, but I didn’t want to look. I wasn’t after grades or praise; I wanted to prove I could do it myself. Even though I was frustrated by the situation, I realized I wasn’t just annoyed, I was hungry, not for food, but I wanted that feeling of finally getting over something that seemed impossible.

By 11 pm, the math problem in front of me was making me even angrier by the minute; it almost felt alive, like it was mocking me and daring me to give up.“Come on,” I muttered. “You are not winning tonight.”In every other subject, winning has always been easy. Memorize, organize, plan. I knew how to do it. But this problem.. It wanted more, and I didn’t know what. I wrote, erased, and tried again. I could almost hear it laughing at me as if it was laughing at me struggling against its persistence. For a moment, I could feel its smirk daring me to give up.

Math had always been my favorite. 9 out of 10 felt like failure–I wanted it perfect. I remembered my teacher praising me for getting things faster than everyone else. I loved that. I loved math. But tonight, it wasn’t about praise.

“This isn’t for grades,” I whispered. “It's just me…against this problem.”

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. The essay victories from before were insignificant for me now that I face a problem like that. Hours passed, and the numbers still didn't make sense. I wouldn’t quit. Every erased line, every failed attempt, just made me even angrier and want to push even harder. This problem wasn’t just numbers in a textbook anymore for me; it was a fight. And I wasn’t the one losing tonight.

Hours blurred as I dueled with the problem, trying to see who would win. I wrote, then erased, and wrote again, each erased line and each time I began again, marked a battle against the problem’s stubbornness and my determination not to lose. I was not just solving a problem, I was defending something more important and personal: my pride, my identity.

“Come on,” I muttered under my breath. “Give up and reveal yourself, you can’t beat me.”

No matter how close I thought I was, I failed again and again. My pencil tore the page, snapping and sliding out of control. I ended up flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling, frustrated out of my mind.

“Am I chasing a ghost?” I asked myself. “Why won’t you just let me win?”

I tried method after method, every method that I could think of, I graphed. Testing. Rewriting the problem from scratch.

Finally, I felt tired of this and said, “Okay, you,” I said, tapping the pencil against the paper. “Show me your secrets.”

Each attempt felt like I was on a battlefield. I was stuck, and the problem countered. I whispered, coaxing the numbers into line. “Come on…come on….” Sometimes I laughed at the absurdity. “How can something I loved for so long fight me like this?” I said, feeling betrayed.

And yet, I didn’t quit. The hunger to find the answer was unbearable.

Exhaustion sets in. My hands were shaking. My mind wavered. “I can’t stop now..not after all this,” I said, to myself.

I imagined the pride of my ten-year-old self, who had fallen in love with math, “Could you have done this, little me?” I whispered. “Could you have faced this?”

I started writing again, each failed attempt felt like raindrops on a stormy night, however it was also proof that I was willing to fight for understanding, not just flip through the answer key. And it was proof that I was willing to fight to feed the hunger until it was finally satisfied.

Finally, I felt something; I could now hear the voice of the silence step by step, and a solution emerged. “Yes…yes, finally,” I whispered, leaning closer to the page. The numbers aligned. The logic finally made sense. Could it be? My pencil moving faster than ever then it stops, as if I did not want to believe it, and being disappointed with a failed attempt anymore.

“It worked…it worked,” I said out loud. The silence wasn’t empty any longer; it was full of victory. It was the hunger that I had fed, the perseverance I had exercised.

I lay on my back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. “I actually did it,” I murmured, almost laughing. My hands tremble not from the fatigue of having stayed up for so long trying to find the solution for one single problem, but from the thrilling fact that I finally overcomed something that demanded more than I could imagine I could give.

I felt both proud and happy, for the quiet pride that wasn’t anyone else's–just for me. “You did it,” I told myself, letting the words sink in.

As I celebrated my victory, I asked myself aloud, “Why has failure always scared me?” Surprisingly, the answer came almost immediately: “I was afraid I wasn’t as smart as I thought. Afraid of losing the image I’ve built for myself.”

I paused, then I laughed quietly as if I had just made a joke, shaking my head. But then something hit me, “wait…that’s not it,” I whispered. It‘s never been about proving anything to anyone.”

I realized I didn’t want to love math for praise or easy victories; I wanted to love it for the challenge, for the hunger it awakens, for the satisfaction of pushing myself beyond what I thought possible.

And just as I closed my notebook, ready to finally rest, I noticed a problem I had skipped earlier–one I thought was impossible. I smiled. “Alright,” I said to myself, “let’s see what you’ve got.”

That night, I discovered that the joy of math comes not from recognition, but from testing my limits–and refusing to give up.

That night taught me something I hadn’t realized before. “Every challenge is worth entering,” I whispered to myself, “not for grades, but for what’s at stake inside me.” The problem had fought back, stubborn and relentless, and so had I, and the victory was mine, but it was more than a win.

From that moment, I understood the hunger inside me wasn’t for praise. It was for the challenge, for growth, and to find out how far I could push myself. Every problem after that night became a test, and a silent invitation.

I smiled at my notebook. “Bring it on,” I said as if I was getting ready for a fight, and I meant it. The quiet hours spent trying to solve the problem had taught me to meet every obstacle with hunger, determination and curiosity. The sound of understanding wasn’t loud, but it was enough for me to hear it inside of me, guiding every step. That small victory wasn’t the end–it was the beginning, and the hunger it awakened still drives me today.

The hunger I felt that night wasn’t just for the right answer; it was to see if I would really just give up and go to sleep. It was the curiosity to know how far I could go, for the relief of not giving in, and to feel the pride that comes when I finally push past the point where I thought I’d stop.

Now, whenever I face a tough problem, I feel that same feeling I felt that night. I’ve realized it’s not really about grades or recognition anymore. It's about the struggle that I went through, the part that hurts a little, the part that makes you want to quit, and the part that makes finishing worth it.

That hunger hasn’t gone away. It’s still with me, quietly, every time I take on something hard. And when I see the next challenge, I don’t feel afraid anymore. I feel ready.