Choosing the Unknown

“The Road Not Taken” is one of Robert Frost’s most well-known poems. Frost was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. He was known for using images as a pastor would in his sermons to his congregation. “The Road Not Taken” is a powerful poem about life. Sometimes life hands us different options. It is our choice which road to travel. Sometimes life seems easier if you take the path that many other people have taken, but sometimes, an unknown path is the most exciting one. Although an unknown path may be difficult to choose, it makes you stand out among the crowds.

At the beginning of the poem, the author uses the image of a fork in the road: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” This is a familiar analogy to most people. One might have a decision to make in life, like a decision about an important job offer. It is considered to be a fork in the road of life. You have to make a huge decision. Many times you might wish the decision simpler because it would be nice to be able to travel both roads. “And sorry I could not travel both” is the author’s way of saying that he would enjoy taking both roads, but he simply cannot take them both. He is only “one traveler” not two. He cannot travel both paths.

The man in the poem stood there for awhile and “looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth.” He is trying to see what might be ahead. He is straining to see where the road might take him; the road bends and he cannot see the end. You will not always know the end result. Life has twists and turns that make it difficult to see what is in front of you.

When the author says, “Then took the other, as just as fair,” it means that both roads were reasonable roads to be taken but then he says, “And having perhaps the better claim/Because it was grassy and wanted wear.” It seems as though he is still debating in his thoughts whether this road was the road he was supposed to take or not. At first he says the roads are the same; then this one is better. Now the roads are the same again: “Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same.” He is having a difficult time. By the end of the poem, we know he had taken the road “less traveled by” which means that he is not taking the path that everyone takes. He is not following the crowd.

The day he was deciding which path to take, nobody else had been down the roads. There was no sign of anyone traveling either road. “And both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black.” This is an image of him being alone in this decision making process. It is easier to have a friend by you when making a life-altering choice. Yet sometimes, you must choose the path alone.

In the poem, both the paths are sitting there, waiting for a traveler to walk down them. The author makes his decision: “Oh, I kept the first for another day!” With his use of punctuation here it seems as though he is in distress over the choice he made. The next couple of lines of the poem tells us why he is so distressed when he says, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/I doubted if I should ever come back.” This also paints the image in our heads of once a path is taken, you cannot go back and choose again. You have just one chance to make the decision of which path to travel. Once that decision is made, there is no turning back. Unfortunately, there is no rewind button in life. There is also no fast-forward button to see the end results.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence.” I believe the author’s sigh is a sigh of satisfaction. I do not think that he is upset that he chose a path that many other people would be afraid to choose. The fact that he said, “Somewhere ages and ages hence” is somewhat funny. Years later, the author is still communicating with us about his decision with no regrets.
How many people can truly say they have lived their life with no regrets? I am sure the author does not mean this entirely. Although, with my interpretation of the poem, the author had a very important decision to make and he made it. His decision seems to be a very difficult one. By choosing the pathway he chose, he stood out among the crowd. Standing out in a crowd is difficult in the current day and age we live in. I am sure standing out was quite difficult back then too. The path was probably one that the average person would not choose. Yet by choosing it, he says, “And that has made all the difference.”

Does it take effort in our society to stand out and make a difference? I believe that depends on who you are, but most of us would say yes. It seems like our whole lives revolve around being part of the “in crowd” or “popular.” As a young child, we wanted all the toys our friends had. We wanted them simply because that was what our friends had. We decided to ask our parents if we could have the toy. This was the path we chose as little children.

As a teenager, we always heard of peer pressure. We had to handle problems such as smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex. How we handled these issues as a teenager would later affect our whole life. These decisions were quite a bit different than the choices we made as young children. They were more important than the trivial decision to ask our parents for a toy we wanted. These decisions are an example of how going against the crowd might be a little bit difficult.
As an adult, we may have to make choices similar to that of our young adulthood. Besides those decisions, some others might be marriage, children, and job offers, as I mentioned earlier. These decisions are difficult ones. For example, the more acceptable choice might be marriage, children, and to be a doctor for life; but what if someone does not want to be a doctor but dreams of being a fast-food manager? It may not be what the other adults are doing, but it was this person’s choice. He chose to take a path that some might think crazy.

Sometimes life’s decisions are complicated. At times, you might feel like you are making the wrong choice. A friend once told me that life is like a cruise. You are on this huge ship. This cruise ship has many events that you could attend. It has many attractions. You could go dancing, swim, play golf, play poker, and many other things. Yet no matter what you do, the ship will still dock at the destination it had in mind when it set sail. You playing poker instead of golf will not change the destination of the cruise ship. Unless you jump off of the cruise ship, there is no way to escape where that ship is going. Life is like a cruise ship. You could call it fate. You could call it destiny. Whatever it is, picking one road over another will still lead you to your destiny.
Making these tricky and intricate choices is part of life. Hopefully, in the end, we can be as blessed as the author was. He was able to say, “That has made all the difference” without an ounce of regret. Let us choose our path and not look back. Let us live a life of no regrets.

Note to readers:
I wrote this for a writing class this semester. When it copied into this, some paragraphs ended up together. Sorry about that. But it was an A paper. Praise God! haha!