What Happened to Pride?

Pride starts at home.

I really try hard to do the right thing.  I really try hard to be a good person.  But, for what?  What is the pay off for me working so hard to be presentable to the public?  My mom passed away last year, so it's not about trying not to embarrass her.  My father is 72 years old and I don't do it to impress him either.

What is it?  What makes me go about my life the way that I do?  What makes me watch what I say in public,  try to dress appropriately for where I'm going and give maximum effort on my job?  Pride.  What happened to pride?  You could see it in so many people back in the day and now it's almost non-existent.

I listened to stories that my parents told me about when they were kids.  People back then had so much pride to the point that it almost seemed like a full-time job within itself.  I have relatives who were janitors, maids, etc. who didn't feel any shame in the jobs that they did.  In fact, they were completely the opposite.

They were so proud of being employed that they worked as hard as they could and rarely took time off.  My parents instilled that same pride in me.  They taught me how to always do my best and work hard.  I do the things that I do because I now have pride in myself.  It wasn't always like that though.  I had to evolve.

When I was younger, like most kids, I acted accordingly not because I cared how I looked in the public's eyes, but to make my parents proud.  I knew that as long as they were happy, then more than likely, I would be, too.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

However, as I got older things changed.  The things I did became more about me and less about my parents.  I realized that I didn't just represent them, but I had my own reputation to uphold as well.  It took seeing some of my peers establishing bad reputations to realize it.  However, what people thought wasn't my only motivation to be a certain way.  What I thought of myself played the most important role in establishing pride in my life.

I cleaned my house when I knew no one was coming over.  I brushed my hair even though I knew I wasn't leaving the home that day.  I realized that I truly had pride in myself when I found myself putting forth a maximum effort doing things that no one would ever see.  I thank my parents for that.  I spent so much time in my life trying to make sure they were happy with my behavior, that I didn't realize that I was benefiting from it myself.

Pride is becoming extinct and it's almost completely non-existent in males.  No one feels ashamed for what they say, how they dress, or how they perform because you can't shame someone who doesn't care.  And if a child doesn't have parents who instills pride in their kids at an early age, then that makes it that much tougher to develop good habits.

This is the society that we live in now.  No one cares any more.  And the people who do care try to keep their families as far away as they can from the people who don't.  I can't say that I blame them.  So many influences of the wrong things flood our television and radio markets and what do we do as parents?  We allow our kids to partake in it.  Why?  Because other kids are doing it.  They're going to hear it anyway.  Why do we let our kids dress like adults?  "Because other kids are doing it."  "They're going to do it anyway."

That's our justification for promoting shame and demoting pride.  SMH.

Do you think that the days of people caring about anything are gone now?

If the parents don't care, then you know the kids won't.