Definitions: (1) initiative; resourcefulness; (2) courage; spunk; guts; (3) common sense; shrewdness
Derivation: Middle English, “energetic common sense,” “to understand”
Compatible Qualities: When you need to do a dirty job the other qualities you will want are: efficiency, focus, patience, and tenacity.
Quote:
• Our souls may all be equal in the sight of the Lord, but our gumption and ingenuity ain’t. So the results of man’s labor will never be equal. — Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881-1954) American author
• A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. — Robert Maynard Pirsig (1928-2017) American writer & philosopher, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values {1974}