5.71 miles (total: 1561.95 miles)
I've finished the Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig today. It's a fantastic book. I am sure I will re-read it multiple times.
Perhaps the closest his book hit home with me this week is his description of gumption. He explains the power of gumption while working on a motorcycle: “If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good. Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven’t got it there’s no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there’s absolutely no way in the whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. It’s bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption. “
What Pirsig so clearly understood is that it is not knowing how you will succeed that drives you forward, but rather an ineffable sense that success is possible. Gumption is our reservoir of good spirits. Another word for gumption in this sense might be faith.
We all need gumption.
The key is to recognize that gumption is not a fixed commodity. At times you are full of faith. At others you are not... and perhaps the best thing you can do at that moment is put your running shoes on and venture outside. Energy and faith come back..
Day 271.
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