Over the course of this year I have some decisions to make. What roads to walk. What roads to turn away from and leave behind. There may be regrets and disappointments. There may need to be an honest facing of who is who and who and where do I fit.
While I really like Robert Frost’s poem Birches, the one that comes to mind here is
The Road Not Taken.
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.
By Robert Frost, thanks to Poetry Foundation for text.
How do you make decisions in your life?
Sign up for We Are the World
Simon's still stanza 