The Difference between Pride and Vanity

It occurs to me that whenever I would say that I am proud, people would look at me and shake their heads. Once, I was even accused of being proud as if it was a bad thing.
But that is not necessarily the case. There are two sides of pride, one of which is an extreme negative feeling that people who lack need it in order to feel better. That side of which is damaging is the main base of racism.
Yet again, pride is not as bad as many people claim it to be. Pride should be based on truth yet it should not contradict with being humble. Humble people are always praised and appreciated, not because they do not brag about themselves but rather because they have enough yet they would not show it or brag about it.

You could be extremely rich yet you would not show it and instead, you would be very ordinarily dressed, talking to people even when you are busy to be nice and doing the usual things that everyone does. But then, you might show your pride of belonging to a special team, or you might be proud to follow a certain faith. It is not pride when you rub it to someone's face and brag about how good you are at something because at any given moment you might lose your skill because of any reason.
Vanity is the negative side of pride. Vanity is the greatest sin, but pride can be a virtue. Pride should always be based on something big that provokes it yet never take away the humbleness of one's self. If you are humble, by that you respect yourself and you respect your abilities and talents because no matter how good you are, there is always someone out there is better, have been better or could become better than you are. But if you choose to show arrogance in your abilities then you will be humbled and put in a place where you do not want to be.

In order to understand the difference between the two, one should keep in mind that vanity is excessive pride in something about which one is vain and pride is a mere high opinion of one's own dignity and importance. In other words, pride is the opposite of shame while vanity is the opposite of humility.
In other words, not all of those who are proud are necessarily arrogant and narcissistic. There is a major difference between expressing your pride and showing no respect for other's abilities. You could not possibly be respectful had you shown people disrespect. There is never a good enough reason to treat others less than how you would like to be treated.
At the end, if you are not proud of whom you are then most likely you need to change something in your life. You don't need to be proud, but you should be because if you believe in what you are doing, if you know that you are going on the right track, you should be proud of yourself and have faith in what you are doing.