Jealousy

      "Jealousy is the thief of joy" says Teddy Roosevelt. Jealousy is something that everyone experiences at one point or another, and can really take hold of someone's life in a small amount of time. With too much thinking, someone can morph something good into a source of anger and jealousy in their life. Jealousy comes from wanting what one doesn't have, and often it is the case that in this desire for other things, the things that one already has are overlooked and they become unimportant and under appreciated.

      In The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the jealous state of the mistress over her husbands "favorite" slave leads the mistress to a cruel and vicious state in which she preys upon the slave girl, trying to find proof of an affair or wrongs done that never happened. Her jealousy drives her to madness, and to the point of stalking the slave.

      In court, jealousy is the motive for countless murders, and has been used to convict people for sudden bursts of violence as a result of that jealousy. In the case of O. J. Simpson, he was convicted of murdering his ex-wife out of jealousy. He was found not guilty, but many people still would believe that he did it and killed his wife for jealousy. People understand how far jealousy goes, and how much it can warp a persons frame of mind and sanity.

      In my opinion, jealousy is a horrible thing and really makes people ungrateful for what they have. I get jealous a lot, which I really don't like about myself, but when I get jealous, I try to think about all the blessings in my life and not focus on what I don't have. I think that people should focus less on the things they want, and more on what they have, because we take a lot for granted and quite frankly, it really hurts us when we do so.