Is Jealousy Good or Bad

Given the idea that people seem a bit crazy from stress, I'm taking a Mental Health Day before I become one of them.  I ponder if jealousy is a good thing or a bad thing, a thing of which grown women should be ashamed. 

On one hand, when you are jealous, nothing is far-fetched. Imagination goes into uber drive, and you think "You two act as though you're f*cking. I know your taste runs a little bizarre, but I was willing to overlook your perverted lifestyle. This behavior, however, is intolerable on a number of levels!"

On the other hand, Jealousy makes you keenly aware of your feelings for the person whose attention you deserve. You may admit to yourself that you are giving that person way too much power over your self-image and emotions, but that's something you'll have to work through. Yah! One more self-improvement project! More fodder for that journal that you hope nobody reads and suspects that you may be (Great God!) a lezzie! 

On the good or not so good side of the matter, jealousy makes you observant. Suddenly you are super sensitive about what is fair and what isn't. The green monster turns you into the hanging judge who readily determines who should be tortured and who should be executed immediately. The executed one is of little importance, so that it's best to get rid of her or him immediately. It's the one who has turned away her or his attention from you that deserves the harshest, most prolonged suffering that you can conceive. Hell, you may have to look up methods of torture in history books if you're running low on ideas. Reading the history of the United States can prove inspirational. 

Once the jealousy has passed -- and it will unless you enjoy insanity -- you will examine a bit closer your feelings for that person. Did you feel a bit too intensely about that person or the relationship you thought you had with that person? Perhaps you and that person had different ideas on how that -ship should have been approached? Will you say "F*ck it. I'll hang with someone who gets as fired up about his or her friends as I get."  You feel less strongly about that person, and the cruelty of possessiveness slips away, as you fumble with the idea of "at what point did this jealousy work against me?"

Jealousy has its merits. after all.