Jealousy is a venomous snake, lurking in the darkness with its thorn-like fangs. The feeling comes when least expected, strong enough to ruin your whole mood. As it is a complex and strong emotion, jealousy can impact someone’s decisions by making them do things they would not normally do. It affects choices due to how it revolves on the seek of control in a situation, often motivated by feelings of insecurity and fear. When blinded by these feelings, it brings a lack of understanding.

This sophisticated emotion comes when love eventually turns into feelings of insecurity, unfairness, or fear. It’s possible that jealousy and envy can be derived from feelings of love, though it does not show it. These feelings are based more on someone’s own fears rather than someone’s own love and admiration.

In the focus of relationships, it can be argued that jealousy comes from feelings of distrust in a partner. It is a dangerous feeling as it can lead to toxic and even abusive situations. When it is taught and shown at a young age, it’s not difficult to grow up stuck in an environment that enforces it. When feelings of jealousy are “normalized” by continuously appearing in someone’s life, it’s possible that the person can be affected by these ideologies more easily. As an example, during past western beliefs with adultery in relationships, “as part of the culture perpetuated by these ideologies, violence towards women was seen as a natural expression of male dominance.” To show violence coming from feelings of jealousy comes from the need for control of an emotion that controls you. Jealousy is not easily managed, and is dangerous when people grow up exposed to these complex feelings.

Another way that jealousy may bring out the worst of decisions is when bullying and ridiculing of someone is used in extreme ways including racism and discrimination. In the story of Othello by William Shakespeare, the antagonist Iago expresses his envy by referring to the protagonist Othello as “an old black ram,” dehumanizing him when speaking badly behind his back. The idea that people will put someone down to bring themselves up is shown in this scenario where Iago wants to feel good about himself by speaking about his thoughts. Going in the direction of speaking badly about another because of jealousy, envy, or hatred, is to seek control by giving oneself a boost of self-esteem with words.

The Dunning-Kruger effect may be the best to summarize the effects of jealousy: “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.”

Jealousy is a feeling part of being human, but it’s important to not let it take charge. It can be used as a lesson to improve as a person, though it can take control in a way that is dangerous.