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.
