Sunday 2 November 2008

Robert Frost's road less travelled ...

I've been re-reading M. Scott Peck's book "The Road less travelled" in recent days - and also his interesting take on business and civility in "A World waiting to be born".
Reading Frost's poem late on a sunny winter Sunday afternoon it made me think about priorities, how we make choices and live with those choices down the line. It's a lovely reflection on a leaf- strewn autumn walk and a metaphor for life.
So have I taken the road less travelled and has that made all the difference? Hmm ... I sometimes feel actually I'm just following the same path that everyone else is on but I pretend to myself and to others that my path is different, more spiritual, more meaningful.
For the most part though, the poem makes me thankful for taking the paths I have so far. Perhaps in the future there will be regrets but for now taking the paths I have, less or more travelled as it may be, has "made all the difference."

The Road not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, 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

Robert Frost

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