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.

 

In a figurative sense, we face this decision every day.  Purely literally, with my daily walks, I deal with it frequently as well.

 

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.

 

When I was a younger man, Robert Frost spoke directly to me with his words.  It is so hard to pass up one trail in favor of another, when knowing how “way leads on to way” I doubt if I’ll ever make it back.

 

Now that I’m older, the final stanza particularly resonates.

 

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.

 

Now that it is “ages and ages hence”, I am so well aware of the many roads not taken, and so well satisfied by the many I have.  Literally and figuratively.