wandering
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;
5
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,
10
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.
15
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.
I was reminded of this watching something yesterday. I may not have done so deliberately but I seem to have always chosen the path less travelled. At the time I would have not said to myself "This decision is the easy route, this other is harder." I would have weighed up the pros and cons, tried to take a long term view, made a decision and got stuck in. I would never have known which was the easy route or the hard route because until you have actually experienced it you can't know for certain. To quote Joni Mitchell , "People will tell you where they have been, they will tell you where to go, but 'till you get there yourself you'll never really know".
It's only with hindsight that I can say the decisions I made were hard paths to tread. I would like to think they afforded the best views. I am of the opinion that life without experience - bad as well as good- is shapeless, tasteless,vaccuous. Outwardly I have no great riches to show for my travels. Inwardly I think I have a huge multicoloured, many threaded tapestry constructed from my journey.
"I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference".