Jealousy, thief unmasked

“I would kill to be him/her, to have his/hers…….”

Each day media pumps into us this “ perfect image” of celebrities. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, it is accepted by many followers without any critique. There is not a single thought of: “it is too shinny and sweet” as presented. “Who cares?! I want his/her body shape, money, success!”

First: from personal experience: The whole of my life I have been a well-build of a rather rounded body shape. At some point, I have lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time, due to illness and a progressing health condition. Of course, people who have seen me often noticed the change.

All comments like: “OMG! You must be on some extreme diet! Share your secret diet!” They said with a look measuring me from top to bottom. I could see in their expressions the mix of jealousy and adoration. Nobody, except my family and very close friends, absolutely nobody didn’t ask: Are you OK? Are you healthy? Nobody was interested in my overall well-being and my suffering.

Their own thief could only see the image of my being an almost anorectic skeleton and they wanted the same for them. Really? Trust me, you wouldn’t like to achieve your dream body shape due to an illness that had to be treated with surgery. The materialistic world.

Second example of this common thief in action. In Ireland, the neighbour knows when “the guy next door” gets a brand-new car. Yeah, right in your face, the car registration states the age of the car. Immediately comes a million-euro question: “How could he/she?” It is accompanied by the stingy emotion of jealousy: “He/she is better off than me”. Followed by an impulse they end up purchasing a new car, with the new registration in a few weeks’ time. “You see, I can have it too!”

As demonstrated in studies: materialism might cause psychological and physical illness through personal perception and value of the money.[1] The possessiveness is forced by social pressure, the belief that normative social status is represented by the possession of the luxury, highly expensive items.

Evolutionary psychology explains sophisticate levels of emotional perception provoked by social interaction such as jealousy, often equipped with possessiveness[2]

In essence, we need all fundamental emotions to build up adaptive skills, to support our survival instincts, e.g. fight/flight reaction triggered by fear/danger. Although the yearn to possess is stressful and dangerous.

Namely, jealousy kills the happiness!

Published on: Jealousy, thief unmasked - Professionals UK

Author: Ewa Babicka

[1] Materialism and Well–Being in the Uk and Chile: Basic Need Satisfaction and Basic Need Frustration as Underlying Psychological Processes, authors: Wenceslao Unanue, Helga Dittmar, Vivian L. Vignoles, Maarten Vansteenkiste. November 2014, Research article, https://doi.org/10.1002/per.1954

[2] The Evolutionary Psychology of Envy and Jealousy, V.S. Ramachandran and B.Jalal, Front. Psychol., 19 September 2017, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01619