It’s the season of Gay Pride and Disability Pride and Italian Pride, etc. I trouble with all of that. I don’t think that an accident of birth or some other factor I had no control over is pride that I’ve earned. Why should I be proud that I’m a woman, heterosexual, disabled, white, a victim of a crime in my childhood, or anything else I didn’t chose, earn, or accomplish? Yes, I admit to some pride when it comes to my learning to adapt to negative aspects of the above–and to some shame when I didn’t adapt in an honorable way. I feel pride, though, for things that I worked for and accomplished, or ways I made a positive difference in this world: as a teacher, writer, mother, wife, friend, advocate, volunteer, and good example.
Everyone has something in life to overcome, be it homelessness, un/under employment, poverty, bad parenting, illness, lack of education, a disability (physical, intellectual, emotional, age-related), extreme shyness…. If I’m caught in poverty, I don’t feel Poverty Pride; if I’m able to help myself out of poverty, I’m entitled to feel pride of success. Apply this to all situations.
In other words, it isn’t what we’re born into or what happens to us that earns us pride. It’s how we handle life itself–and interact with those sharing this Earth–that lets us carry the ultimate sign: “Human Pride.”