Is jealousy natural?

Is jealousy natural?

I have two dogs. And bigger one, and, obviously, a smaller one. 

They share their toys. And they usually ignore them, but when one picks up one and starts playing with it, the other one will appear out of the blue just to try to take it away from the one that has it. She could have been doing anything, yet still if either one of them sees the other one playing with one of the toys, they will try to steal it away.

A while later, when one of them has managed to steal it and the one that had the toy in the beginning has finally given up and left, the "thief" will get tired of it soon enough and leave it behind, forgetting how much she has fought to get it. Sometimes (this is usually done by the bigger one, taking advantage of her size, even though they both do it), they will take the toy from the other one just to hide it away. The stealer won't even play with it, she just buries it somewhere so the other won't find it and won't be able to use it.

But, that is nothing compared with how they react when one of them is interacting with a human. Several times, it has come to a point where they bark and sometimes even attack (not in a serious way though) at the one that is being paid attention to, till the point where that one leaves sacred and confused, and the attacker approaches the human like nothing had just happened.

What I am trying to prove with this, is that jealousy is indeed a natural thing.

Dogs are probably the most basic creatures on earth. And despite what humans like to believe, we are by no means better than them. We are nothing but wild creatures that somehow have managed to create a language and a society.

We could just extrapolate what happens with my dogs to humans, creating a theory based on the fact that since dogs, better than us in almost every aspect (decency, kindness, loyalty…) feel jealousy, we, a lesser, more selfish and evil race, definitely feel it too.

Commonly, we use the same definition for envy and jealousy, but according to this article from the website “Psychology Today” they are not the same. While it defines envy as “a state where you experience yourself as lacking something that will lead you to be admired as much as you secretly admire the person who has the desired attribute or possession you envy”, jealousy is defined as assuming that “someone else is receiving the attention, love, or adoration that you want for yourself, which is provided by someone from whom you want it” creating a threat to your relationship, and leading to “an anger response that may result in aggressive and offensive behavior”.

So, in a certain way, this definition could easily be a justification in order to stop this essay right now, since it confirms that jealousy is indeed natural, somehow caused by the fear of losing someone/something that we love against someone else who may seem better, and fear, being the powerful emotion that it is, leads us to do anything in order to keep that someone/something from being stolen from us.

We are, after all and like I said before, nothing but wild creatures dominated by our instincts, that, no matter how hard we try to repress, always end up consuming us. So, from my perspective, jealousy is a natural thing. But in no way I’m trying to justify it; we, the so-called “”” superior and intelligent race”””, should learn how to at least control ourselves from bothering other people (and perhaps even hurting them) because of our instincts, we should analyze the situation and realize that most of the times, we have no reason to be jealous, and if we do, it is probably a lost cause anyway.

So, as a final conclusion, even though it is natural, we should try to control it.