It can only hurt you if you let it

“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.” (p.11)

Many of us have experienced others say that we are useless in a wide range of intensity. For example, in the quote above, Jane is told that she lower than a servant. She is a useless person who only causes trouble. Jane is being told this in a very intense way because of the fact that she is going to be locked in a dark room because of fighting with her cousin and is threaten to be tied up if she doesn’t stop resisting. This bold statement has affected Jane throughout her life and it has shaped Jane’s personality throughout the novel.

As intense it may seem, we shouldn’t care about what others think of us. Every hurtful statement is only said to focus on your weaknesses and to make you submissive. Basically it's just said to belittle you. The statements cannot hurt you physically, but only mentally. We leave ourselves vulnerable to the insult and it somehow finds its way to hurt us mentally like the child in the picture below. It can hurt us to the point that it changes our lives. The only way to stop the insult from hurting us is to be mentally strong and the only way to achieve this is to know the fact that it can’t hurt you. Since there is no physical pain done from the insult, all you have to know is that what the other person is throwing at you is just words. The only way these words will hurt you is if you let them, but they won’t because you know that they are just words put together to belittle you. We also shouldn’t care because we don’t live off of what others think of us. We are independent people and our actions are who we are. We are not the hurtful statements that others tell us. So these insults shouldn’t hurt us and should be looked upon as meaningless words.

Pink Sherbet Photography, "Free child looking out a window with reflection stock", http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3212680093/