I remember reading Shakespeare's "Hamlet" my junior year of high school. There was a word that kept resurfacing in class discussion.
Hamartia—“tragic flaw,” my teacher said it meant.
Hamlet’s hamartia was his pride.
I distanced myself from the man in that tragedy.
I never much favored Shakespeare, anyway.
Until tonight.
I have always been hyper-aware of my imperfections, my pride.
I never quite saw Hamlet in myself, though.
Tonight, though, everything changed.
I saw myself as the selfish prince I hoped to never become.
By the light of a desk lamp, I found my hamartia.
My tragic, tragic flaw.
Envy.
Scrolling through Instagram, I saw a picture of a girl.
She was gorgeous by every standard.
I wanted her hair and her perfect skin and her perfectly winged eyeliner.
I wanted to be as thin as her and I wanted the same clothes she wore.
But I knew I didn’t have any of those things; they all belonged to her.
So I started searching for something wrong with her.
OK, maybe you didn’t quite understand: I—a living, breathing, broken human being—searched for something wrong with her—another living, breathing, likely broken human being.
We’re all a little broken, mind you.
I couldn’t find a flaw, though, and that’s when it hit me—my hamartia.
I don’t want to speak for you, but I would venture to say that I’m not the only girl on this planet facing the struggle of jealousy.
When I see beauty, I want it for myself. When I can’t see it in myself, I quickly search for holes in the beauty of another.
All so I can feel prettier.
This is a constant battle. I desperately want for you and me to feel beautiful, and yet your hair is shinier, your smile is brighter, your clothes are more fashionable than mine, and here I am—an ugly, detrimental shade of green.
Jealously is not pretty, and I know that. So if I want to feel pretty, why would I let myself feel envious, too?
The thing is, the more conscious we are of the beauty of others, the more self-conscious we become.
I don’t think it has to be that way, though, and last night, it hit me why.
No, I didn’t like reading "Hamlet."
Shakespeare was always over my head, and quite honestly, I respect him for that. He’s a literary artist, and his plays are his art.
We were painted by God. We are art.
We can’t just tell God, the artist of all humankind, that He made mistakes when painting us. That’s not how it works.
Who am I, a lowly human, to correct the diving hands that made my hair this way, my eyes this way, my heart this way?
Who am I, a work of art, to lose sight of my own beauty simply because I envy that of another?
We are all art.
Yeah, she’s pretty. Of course she is; she is a literal piece of art. Let’s admire her rather than envy her beauty.
Why? Because we, too, are just as valued in the eyes of the creator as she.
We were painted by the same hands; we’re just separate muses.
