I think we sometimes we have things affect our pride that really have no business being associated with it.

We teach children that bowel functions are private and not nice and we make them feel like they are functions that we need to be embarrassed about. Yet EVERYONE has them and we're the only species that feels the need to do them in "private". So we feel it impacts our pride when we can't control them as well as we should. Kids and bedwetting is another good example.

But this is an example of misplaced pride. We should never feel embarrassed or a lack of pride about something that is out of our control anyways. But for some reason, we take the "hits" to our pride when we can't do these things normally any more, as though somehow it was our fault.

We should reserve pride for things withIN our control, and not for things outside of it. We get embarrassed, ashamed, discouraged so much by things that just are not within our control at all. It's like we take any opportunity to take a hit to our self esteem or feelings of value.

Just think of how much better we'd feel if we didn't beat ourselves up for things completely out of our control, particularly the physical and cognitive weaknesses. We'd be a lot happier and accepting if we stopped judging these things as things we are embarrassed about or things that make us somehow inferior to other people.