A Child of Circumstance

Since having the stoke as a result of an artery being cut getting to my brain tumour, I have become way more aware that I what I am, and what I have achieved, was just because I had it good.
I totally think it is good to work at things and be the best I can be.  But I have seen more clearly than ever that what I do, and who I can become, has less to do with me and more to do with the cards I have been dealt.
I feel I gave lip service to saying I could have been born anyone.  I had no control over the family I was born into.  I could have been born into a famine situation and my expected life span could have been measured in days and weeks rather than years and decades.  Others are born into that.  It could have been me.
Added to that, both well to do and pauper are totally dependent on an outside element to survive.  I need air.  I could not survive without it.  That sort of thing for me puts paid to any thought of pride. 
I do not question the thought of pride in a job well done.  I like that.  I often revisit a job well done and get satisfaction in looking at it.  Yet to me it would be foolish in the extreme to imagine that anything I can achieve is the result of anything more than a gift.  I could have been born totally void of any understanding and needing others to care for me 24/7.  I wasn’t.
I have attempted to make the best of what I have.  My response is thankfulness rather than pride.  To me, looking at the big picture, my life can seem long but it is short in comparison to the age of the earth and beyond.  I have a role, but it is part of the picture and not the picture.
What I ask myself is how can I take pride in what I have no control over?  I can do what I know to do, and reasonable expect a certain result, but I cannot guarantee my next breath let alone outcomes.