I thought the answer to the whole pride thing is that you should be aware of it. Once you are are aware of it, it sort of becomes silly. If you are self reflective enough you realize that you really have nothing to be prideful about. A western religion guy/gal would owe it all to god, and non-believer would realize he is just a product of his circumstances and environment and the eastern guy would realize their is really nothing to it. (editors note--I will defer thoughts on eastern stuff to J Commisso because pinning down eastern thought is like trying to catch something subatomic with an unstrung racquet).