Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood
Friday, October 26th, 2007
"Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood..." -- You all know those words. We all had to read them, all had to write reports on them. Those words by a man named Robert Frost in a poem called "The Road Not Taken". It brings back memories of tattered old textbooks and scarred school desks and those various teachers urging us to take it in, to keep it with us... for they, having learned from life exactly why the poem had meaning, simply wanted for us to take the advice instead of having to learn the hard way. But stubborn and egotistical as middle-schoolers tend to be, we completed our work and moved on, pretty much forgetting that the words ever existed.
In a bout of literary neediness one night I spent hours and hours pouring over poetry by men and women who had long ago passed. And then I saw it again. And this time, I appreciated its signifigance. Yes this time, I analyzed it with an intensity I never possessed all those years ago. It's about choices. It's about how in life, we are often given two choices... the easy one or the hard one. It's a small tale about the merits of working a little bit harder to get something infinatly greater than simply reaching a destination, but the pride you feel at having overcame the obsticles you willingly chose to face. All of us face obsticles, but more often than not, they are obsticles we have had thrust upon us, not ones we saw coming and stood up to anyway. No, we tend to be victims of circumstance instead of victors of our intentions.
I'm not trying to be profound here. Mostly when I saw "we" I really just mean "me" and this is just a recount of things I have noticed in my own life.
For someone so intelligent, I've been unbelieveably stupid. I've taken the easy ways out. I settled. I chose only roads that guaranteed to be simple and that assured that I had no chances to stumble... or worse yet... fall flat on my face. I've kept feelings in because it's easier to be introverted than to trust people. I became a recluse because it was much less stressful to stay home in my own company than to go out and ... god forbid... make a fool of myself. I settle more comfortably in sadness than happiness because being happy leaves only room to be let down, to feel that happiness slowly slip away and disappear and leave me despondent, so I've always just cut to the chase and chose misery because there is no place to fall from there... there is no way for it to get worse.
I was the fool who chose the worn-down path. And I wonder how far I must travel to get back to where I began to choose the road less traveled by. Maybe it would make all the difference.
So in parting I guess all I have to say is take chances. Laugh when it is inappropriate. Cry when you're happy. Smile when you're sad. Trust in the fact that you are not just some mistake of breeding and that you were put here for a reason and that reason is never to do anything less than your best. Nothing worth having will ever come easily and those things are usually worth all the fighting you had to do to obtain them. Don't make this universe regret you. And last, but certainly not least, trust in the immortal words of Robert Frost.
P & L,
Jessica
(in case you want to brush up...)
The Road Not Taken -- 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.