What’s mine is mine

As humans, we are predisposed to feel possessive about things. This feeling of possessiveness begins right from our childhood, where a toddler is unwilling to share his/her toys, gets jealous when he sees their parents with the second child but it is very easy to distract toddlers with other interesting things and the possessiveness shifts accordingly. Once you grow up a little, you start feeling possessive about your friends. How strange? Our possessiveness changes according to the circumstances.

Growing up, we learn that being possessive is not a healthy trait but continue to harbour feelings of possessiveness subconsciously. Take a cricket match for example. When the match is between India and another country, say Australia, we are always in favour of India and feel upset when our country does not win. This feeling arises out of possessiveness for the country. When the match is between Karnataka and Hyderabad (both states belong to India), our possessiveness shifts from national level to state level. The state becomes a district and then your own locality. When we play the same game with our friends or siblings, we want to win! See how the possessiveness shifts from the entire country to eventually ourselves.

We are possessive about best friends and people close to us. I even feel possessive about my pets interacting with others the same way as they do with me. We are also possessive about materialistic belongings, like an expensive car or an iPhone that even a small scratch can disturb our inner peace but when a new car or phone arrives, our possessiveness shifts to new things. Hence, everything is in our minds, and the level of possessiveness changes according to the circumstances we are in. It is a human tendency to want, care, and feel protective of things. I think every human being is possessive to some degree and it is not completely wrong, as long as we keep it to ourselves and do not harm someone else. What are you possessive about the most?

-Hariprriya