How to Decide Where your Pride Fits

The fifth chapter is about pride. The people in this book have experienced past moments that were full of pride, instilled in them from a young age by family and community. Although there are enormous challenges involved in having to learn how to do their jobs, these struggles are also a reason to be proud and confident later in life. This part of the book, however, is also about the ability to put aside pride in order to do things that others might not deign to do, because the prize ahead is a collective one.

What can puncture a hole in people’s pride is to perceive there is no one listening. To have less power in a broader political agenda can be accommodated; being asked to fill in matrices, worry over formulae, planning ahead according to specific headings and priorities, and then finding all these investments of time and resources go unacknowledged seems to breed more dissatisfaction than other kinds of disappointments. In order to respond, one needs a clear sense of where one’s pride fits in the grand scheme of things. This a matter of both strategy and a sense of duty; a responsibility towards collective goals but also towards one’s own personal story.