Gumption

 
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is my favorite book to date. I am currently reading it for the fourth time, and it is no quick read. However, that is one of the things I enjoy most about the book - that the reader follows the characters through many years of trial and tribulation, so much so that by the end I feel as though I know Scarlett, Rhett and everyone else who has survived the war.
However, this post is not about the book, but about the quote above, which I worked into a typographic piece. I felt a need to give it some extra attention because I have found it to be such a pertinent statement. Although Gone With the Wind was published in 1936, I still feel what Mitchell writes to be contemporary in many ways. I am especially fond of the word gumption, which many would think of as an old-fashioned word, but I think of as the perfect word to use when describing a quality I find essential in the people I surround myself with, and something I pride myself in possessing and striving toward.
Gumption can be defined as shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness; common sense; courage; spunk; guts. It might be easier to get along in this world without gumption, but it surely would not be nearly as exciting, productive or joyous. I don't think the first pilgrims would have gotten very far without it, and I doubt America would be its own country without a bit of it as well. Let's hear it for GUMPTION!