The Crayon of Jealousy

Jealousy is like a crayon.

The harder you press with a crayon, the deeper the color becomes, and the more it damages the paper. If you press too hard, it might even tear. When the blue next to you looks beautiful, you might find yourself wanting to layer that same color onto your own paper, but then you suddenly realize, looking at the messy drawing you've created before you knew it.
Is this really the color I wanted?


When I was a child, I used to envy my friend's crayons. Thinking back on it now, that was my first experience with jealousy.

Compared to the 12 colors I had, that child's 24 colors looked so much freer. If I had 24 colors, I could draw sunflowers as well as she does. Because I only have 12, I can only draw this much. That's how I used to think.

If I could meet my younger self from back then.
I would want to tell her that even if I got my hands on a 24-pack of crayons, my drawings wouldn't change all that much. And I am still as moody as ever. I still love white and pink just as much as I did then, but on days when the sky is beautiful, sky blue becomes my favorite color, and on days when the mandarin oranges are delicious, mandarin orange becomes my favorite color.

What matters is not how many colors of crayons you have. It is about being the kind of person who can find the colors you truly want to cherish at any given moment and choose them without hesitation. I think that finding the colors you truly love is more important for drawing the pictures you want to draw than simply increasing the number of crayons you have.

That is why my sunflowers don't have to be yellow. Today pink, tomorrow sky blue—I can draw them however I like with whatever colors I love. Even if I only have one crayon, or even if I have a hundred. Because that child's sunflower can only ever be her sunflower, and my sunflower can only ever be mine.


The feeling of envying others is surely the same. There are times when you want what someone else has, but what someone else has and what you need are not necessarily the same thing. Even if you get the same crayons as that child, those colors might not be the ones that make your own drawing beautiful.

If you press too hard with the crayon of jealousy, it will make a mess of your heart. But if you trace it gently, perhaps it can teach you about colors you don't currently have.

If I could apply jealousy gently.
With the colors I love, and the colors I didn't know until now.
That will surely become a sunflower that only I can draw. A color that is mine alone, the only one in the world.

Today, I pick up a crayon in my favorite color.
Letting myself trace someone else's favorite color as gently as possible, too. So that I can always make my own sunflower bloom.

Nami Saito-san, Jun Ikematsu-san,
I have participated.
Thank you.

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