That Green-Eyed Monster

“O, beware, my lord (and lady), of jealousy: It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

~ William Shakespeare

I love Shakespeare. No, I’m serious. His flowery words, his flowing sentences, and his miraculous ability to weave stories together that are still finding their way into modern hands nearly four hundred years after their original publication brings mirth to my heart and has opened the door for my soul to fall in love with other classical works, be it Jane Austen’s “Sense & Sensibility” or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” Yet upon reading the latter in my English class at school, I realized that I was one of the few students who genuinely enjoyed the novel, partly, I believe, due to the fact that Fitzgerald’s writing style and mine share the same descriptive, ornate characteristics that turn many people’s minds off and onto something much more fast-paced and thrilling, which I totally understand. However, since these works are dubbed as the pillars of literature as we know it today, a stigma around these books says that only “smart” people enjoy such stories, that one has to be “intelligent enough” to understand all their hidden meanings, or only “bookworms” or “nerds” care to read such “dry” writings from eons ago. In a society that loves to show-off how good we have it while simultaneously hiding every messy thread of our lives, we’ve turned every action of everyone’s existence into a black-or-white scenario, declaring you’re either brilliant or stupid, beautiful or ugly, perfect or not good enough. And that is a very toxic place to live, sleep, and breathe in each and every moment.

As someone who loves a good book for company, I’ve been painfully aware that, oftentimes, people who express an outward love of reading are painted as socially-awkward, shy, and rather uncomfortable-in-their- -own-skin, which is why they spend so much time nestled in a book instead of out in the “real” world. But the more I looked at myself, the more I thought about why I read and why I love it, the answer wasn’t that I didn’t want to socialize or that I felt like I didn’t have anything to say. In fact, from reading everything from history books to today’s memoirs, I found I had more to say, more to give, and more to use in my arsenal of social skills and empathy than I did before. Despite this truth being such a core part of who I am, it took years to discover because I spent so long looking at others with envy who didn’t share my passion, who had a huge friend circle, who were “popular,” because all I could see when I looked at them was the gaping whole in my soul of what I longed for the most – someone to share everything I’ve learned with, someone to laugh with, someone to talk to. When I fixed my eyes on everything I didn’t have, I missed all the things that I did.

Until this past year, I never thought anyone would ever look at my life and think, “Wow, I wish I had her gifts, her laughter, her life.” I never thought anyone would ever look at me and think I was pretty, nor did I ever think that anyone would feel jealousy towards me for my jokes, lighthearted comebacks, or pranks, wishing they could pull off hiding their teacher’s coffee cup. Yet through glowing encouragement and unwavering support through tribeswomen, teachers, mentors, and loved ones, I began taking notice of all the things I was doing right and shifted my focus off of all of the things I was doing wrong. Yes, of course acknowledging my weaknesses and striving to do my best in everything I do is important, and the point of this article is not to say that I, or you, am completely perfect beings in each and every one of our ways. My name isn’t Christ, and neither is yours. The point of this article is to empower us in our own individual strengths that were specifically given to us by the God of the universe in His perfect plan to see us live our fullest, most beautiful lives.

“I am equipped to handle what I have, both good and bad; and her (or his) success does not threaten yours, nor mine.”

~ Lysa TerKeurst, “Embraced”

Even though our world is filled with comparison at each and every turn, may we focus on all the beauty and bravery we have, all the gifts that we have to make our corner of the globe a better place, and lift up our sisters and brothers as they thrive in their own right, for we all rise by lifting others.