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.
- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" (1951)
I have always loved this poem by Robert Frost; I’ve always loved exploring paths in the woods! As children, my brother, sister, and I loved visiting the Braille Trail on Casper Mountain. It’s thoroughly delightful to explore a path to see where it leads. I think my children have inherited that proclivity: they were very interested in exploring when we went to Colorado last fall for the Feast of Tabernacles. They modified path exploration adding rock climbing - and they didn’t much care if there was a path where they wanted to go or not.
Part of what I love about this poem, though, is the thought portrayed: which path shall I take? Which one looks more promising for adventure and delight? Extrapolating that out, I think about the choices I make on a daily basis. Too often I make snap decisions without thoughtfully, thoroughly considering why I’ve made that particular choice. Perhaps most of the time it really doesn’t matter: who cares whether I wear a sweater or a sweatshirt today? Does it make a difference whether I eat oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast?
But sometimes it does matter, and it matters profoundly. Frost touches on that reality too: sometimes when you choose a certain path, you don’t get the opportunity to come back and take the other one. And far off in the future, you could very well be sighing and thinking about the consequences of the path you chose way back when.
Although Yogi Berra would say, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” sometimes it behooves us to stop and consider the possible ramifications of choosing one way over another. Yes, we will have taken the fork, but we may well be sighing that the fork we have taken has made all the difference.