Besides being a poem by Robert Frost, and a best-selling self-help book by one of my favourite authors, what is the road less traveled? We are encouraged to take it, whatever it ends up meaning for our lives.
We have but one life to live, at least, in our present incarnation or that we know about. And while we lead our lives to the best of our abilities, there is only so much we can accomplish. We cannot be suburban housewives and glamourous movie stars at the same time, although either wishes they could change places from time to time. They are simply incompatible. And yet, who has taken the road less traveled? The movie star, simply because there are less of them? These are the existential questions that haunt us every day and fill us with regret. How do we know we are living the life we should be, when there are so many lives we could be leading?
Furthermore, if everyone began taking the road less traveled, wouldn't it no longer be so? Our society, so fixated on uniqueness to the point where we are all rebellious and non-conformists in the same way. Doesn't that make the old road less traveled look like a well-worn path?
The answers, as with any philosophical question, are few. I think the only two cents I have to add is that perhaps we just have to have confidence as we head down any road, certain that regardless of the path we chose, it is the one we want to be living. It is only with this confidence that we can drown out the sounds of the existential angst that plagues us.
""Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."-Robert Frost
2 comments:
I agree with your conclusion. There isn't much point in pondering the road less travelled because we've taken to many turns to see where it would have taken us. The only logical thing to do without going insane is to have faith that the road we are on is the one and only one we want to be on. Perhaps this is why people follow religions. It gives them hope that they follow the correct path.
I wrote the following poem in response to Frost's "The Road Not Taken":
The road I took has brought me here
Beyond the dreams of yesteryear.
Now and then I wonder what
That other path had promised, but
I took the one that offered me
A semblance of security.
I know I cannot turn around,
Abandon all the things I found
While winding down the road I chose.
But maybe there's a path that goes
Between the two, so I can find
A cherished dream I left behind.
In high school I had some talent as an entertainer (professional magician) and writer, but my parents discouraged thoughts of any kind of career in the performing or literary arts, so I ended up as a teacher. That in itself had many rewards as I watched children discover the world and all the possibilities open to them. Still, I can't help but wonder "What if..."
I sometimes wish Sam Beckett would step into the Quantum Leap chamber and put right anything that might have gone wrong in my life...
----- Amado Narvaez
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