The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is often cited as a poem of great influence to those of us that wish to seek out an alternative life, to define a life of our own choosing.  We are the people who seek out the road not taken, looking to walk on paths where others, perhaps, fear to tread, paths that have an ending we cannot fathom, paths that take us away from our comfort zone and into the unknown, and that is precisely the appeal of them.  But what is the cost of doing so?  What lies down that other road, the road more travelled by, and by not taking that road, have we missed out on something?

How would my life have been, if I had not dared to take the road less travelled?  Would I now have all of those things that I want in life, but have still not achieved - a wife, a family, and a home?  Perhaps I would, maybe I would not.  I will never know, no one can ever know.  When we forsake one path for another, the other path is closed off to us forever.  Even if we are able to recover that path, to have a second opportunity to explore it, time will have passed, we will have gained new experiences, new insights, and we come to the path again as a slightly different person.  The path may appear to be the same, but our perception of it and of what it brings will be altered, even if we are not conscious of it.  And that will change everything.

I cannot regret my decisions.  Each time that I was presented with two diverging paths, I always took the one for which my heart yearned the most.  That is how I live my life, that is how I will always be.  My heart is me and I am my heart.  We are inseparable, for better or for worse.  I do not believe that I only ever took the path less travelled by, I never saw my decisions based on that concept.  I was presented with options, with opportunities, and my heart decided on the appropriate direction.  If my heart decided it, then my conclusion is that it must have been what I wanted.

This post has been prompted by the writing of a dear friend of mine.  She has questioned the meaning of the poem in her own life, and wonders whether taking the road less travelled has steered her life in the wrong direction.  Perhaps it has, but there is no way of ever knowing the answer.  Life brings to us all of the things that we need.  There is a saying that I hear often, "Be careful what you wish for".  The meaning of this is that if you wish hard enough for something, often it comes to fruition.  I believe that subconsciously, we work hard to create in our lives all of those things that we truly desire, to generate the opportunities that we seek.  I know that has been the truth of my own life.  This friend of mine became a friend because at some pivotal moment in my life, I took the road less travelled.  I dared to go down an alternative path, a path that was completely unknown to me, and down that path, I met my friend.  Had I not taken the road less travelled, we would never have met, we would not be friends, we would never have shared everything that we did, I would not have loved the way that I loved, I would not be here, now, sitting in Costa Rica as a scuba diving instructor, writing this blog, and I would not be able to look back with fondness on the moments and memories that we shared together, and know that my life is far richer for knowing her.  Her contribution to my life is immeasurable.  It makes me sad to think that she would be willing to exchange that for something else. To erase me from her memory,  as if I had never existed.  Rather like in the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, when George Bailey wishes that he had never been born.  Pull me out of the weave of her life, and so many memories, experiences, happiness, sadness, loss, love, laughter and giggles would be eroded and lost. 

The road less travelled is not the problem as I see it.  It is the perception of what that road has brought into your life that is the problem.  I guess that I am still walking the road less travelled, I am still pursuing my heart and my dreams.  I always will.  I trust that eventually my road will bring me to the place that I desire, that it will bring me those things of which I dream, that one day, I will be sitting and writing a blog about fatherhood and what it means to be a husband.  I know that if I wish it enough, that if I take the opportunities presented to me, then it will happen.  For me, the road less travelled has been a blessing.  There has been a price to pay, but I willing pay that price.  I would not change one thing about my life.  My life comes with sadness and frustration, with pain and a lack of love.  But it also comes with a deep sense of joy at being able to see life and the miracles that occur each and every day.

I cannot tell anyone what is the right or wrong decision or direction for them.  When two roads diverge in a wood, it can only be your own choice, your own decision, which path to take.  You'll know it when the moment arrives.  No amount of thinking will change the truth: that the decision was already made before you came to the divergence.  Your heart knows the way, your heart leads you always towards the light.  And in the light you must walk.  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all of the difference.  And for this I am mightily glad.   



The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

_________________________