Gumption

I could go for a healthy dose of some good ol' fashioned gumption right about now.

According to studies, it takes 21 days to break a habit. My friend J calls this process I'm putting myself through, a twisted version of AA. And I suppose it is. I've enlisted a daily reminder to help with the process. If I progress, I go up, and if I screw up, I'm back down to zero. But it has to be done. Don't ask what habit I'm trying to break. Chances are, you already know. And if you don't, and curiosity's gotten the best of you, please read back-entries. You'll get the idea!

In the past few days I've taken up to watching episodes of Mad Men. What. a. show! Aside from the fabulous eye-candy that is Jon Hamm, (whose character, Don Draper, I've recently started to despise), it's the women characters on the show who have me addicted. Now they... they had gumption!

I always imagined that being a woman on a mission in the '50s and '60s -- whether it was climbing the corporate ladder, or working around the clock to secure a husband -- would be a tedious and exhausting role to live up to. But these women did it... and in stilettos and corsets, no less. This idea of being a woman in a man's world truly grew from that era, I think.

But in order to get anywhere in that time, they needed to put their emotions aside and think like men, while never losing the allure that defined them as women. "Stop dressing like a school-girl and use your ankles," said Joan, the head of the secretarial pool in the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency.

Amazing stuff.

I think it's helpful to perhaps revert to the essence of those times, ladies. Thankfully we now live in a world that enforces equal opportunities (or so we hope, anyway). But this idea of not letting emotions manipulate our moves... I think that's something. Men do it all the time... so why can't women? It could dissolve so much unnecessary heartache.

Or perhaps it's just something for me to adhere to anyway.

Gumption: n. Informal

1. Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.
2. Guts; spunk.
3. Common sense.
4. The ability to make sensible decisions.
   

xo
SC