Pride+Essay--Preston

1. Have you ever felt great about something in your life? I mean, really great. So great you even wanted to wear it on your shirt, or put it on your car, or tell everyone you knew? We've probably all felt like that about something at some point in our lives. What makes us feel that way? Pride makes us feel like that. Though there are many ways to define pride, I'm going to explain why I think that pride is a complex emotion, one that can have both positive and negative impacts on the people around us.

2. We all sit on the cold, concrete curb, crammed in like fans at a sold-out football game. Around us, flags wave, children unwrap Tootsie Rolls, and the sounds can be heard of several distant bands all playing at once. Once we see the crowd of children round the corner, we spot the blue t-shirts with the red emblems, we recognize the faces, and we are on our feet. The hoots and hollers from our little crowd of people are deafening. Not everyone cheers as loudly as we do, but this is //our// school's float in the parade and we want everyone to know. These are OUR people. This is OUR school. This is something we are proud of. Pride is a powerful emotion, one that brings forth a lot of feelings for many different people. This essay will look at some different aspects of pride and the impacts it can have for people everywhere. One of the reasons so many people show pride in so many different ways is that pride can make people feel good about being a member of a group. Throughout history, people have used symbols to show that they belong to a certain group of people. If pride didn't make people feel good, they wouldn't show it in what they wear or how they behave. People wouldn't have symbols of things they weren't proud of. For example, a drunk driver wouldn't wear a t-shirt advertising that he or she had a history of law-breaking, because it's not something people are proud of. Pride shows that we enjoy being associated with something, and that can make us feel good. There are many ways people show pride in something. When people watch a sporting event and cheer for their favorite team, they cheer because they are proud of their team. Students wear school t-shirts and sweatshirts. People in countries throughout the world wave symbols of their homeland by holding flags to represent their pride in where they live. These are choices people make, and those choices can make us feel good, but that is not the only emotion pride can illicit. Pride can also hurt people's feelings. Have you ever been playing a game on a team and lost? Losing rarely feels good, but nothing makes losing feel worse than having the other team cheer loudly. Of course, people should feel good about winnning, but when does pride go too far? I think that it is possible to show too much pride. There are also examples from history of groups taking pride in their people to the point of hurting others. Adolph Hitler felt that his race was superior to other races and religions. Under his leadership, his army and allies engaged in a war that left over 6 million Jews dead. In some places in the world, people aren't allowed to criticise or disagree with their government, because they are seen as NOT showing enough pride. When people's pride hurts other people or keeps them from having basic rights, this pride changes from a good thing to a dangerous thing.

- Throughout history, people have used symbols to show that they belong to a certain group of people. -Those symbols are evidence that people have pride. -People don't have symbols to show things they aren't proud of (example: drunk drivers don't wear t-shirts saying so, but SuperBowl winners wear their Super Bowl rings) -Pride shows that we enjoy being connected to certain other people, and that can feel good.
 * Pride makes people feel good about being a member of a group.

-Cheering for their favorite team -Waving their flag -Wearing their school t-shirts and sweatshirts -Uniforms -Gloating over winning the game hurts the other players and fans. -Nazis in Germany -White Power movement and KKK -
 * People show their pride in many ways.
 * When people have too much pride, it can hurt other people.