Please allow me to ask you a few questions. I wonder what your answers to yourself might be. I will answer the questions for myself as I go along.

Are you proud you were born? (No.)

Are you proud you were born with a mental and/or physical disability? (No.)

Are you proud you were born without a mental and/or physical disability? (No.)

Are you proud of your gender? (No.)

Are you proud you were born of a certain race? (No.)

Are you proud you were born with any other innate quality? (No.)

Are you proud you derive from ancestors who once lived in a certain country or were of a particular culture? (No.)

Would you feel pride if your aunt left you a fortune in her will.  (No.)

Would you feel pride in having been struck by lightning? (No.)

None of these things would make me proud because they were things over which I had no  choice nor influence. They simply happened to me; leaving me either victim or beneficiary. To claim pride in any of them would be akin to taking personal credit for the paths the planets travel as they orbit the sun. This would not be something to RESPECT.

PRIDE derives from personal accomplishments. They are its foundation. The choices we make, the efforts we and/or others put forth are the only rational sources of PRIDE.

NEXT UP: RESPECT (with references to PRIDE).