Few things make you feel worse about being miserable than being told you should feel fortunate for circumstances that upset you. Charlotte Brontë's orphaned heroine in
Jane Eyre was scolded for not appreciating the security her rich but cruel relatives gave her. She thinks, "I could not answer the ceaseless inward question—why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly." Brontë writes, "Children, can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings." Just because we, as adults,
can analyze our feelings doesn't mean we
do. Don't let others—even if they mean well—treat you like an ungrateful child.
Jane Eyre reminds you that you have the right, and the power, to assess your own world.
