What if? -- 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;        5 

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,        10 

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.        15 

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.        20 

  There are those who look at this poem, which is a personal favorite of many, myself included, and find inspiration in the words.  I used to as well.  For some reason, however, I have recently taken a second look at the poem because something doesn't seem to make sense to me.  Why is the title of the poem "The Road Not Taken?"  Why would the speaker be telling the story about a fork in the road with a sigh?  Was it a sigh of contentment or longing or resignation?  I suppose we don't know enough about the poem on it's own to say for sure.  


  Enter my mother, the English professor extraordinaire, who had some insight to offer on the writer.  She said the poem was written as a friendly jab at Frosts friend and colleague, Edward Thomas.  See, they would frequently take walks around the countryside together to talk and enjoy the fresh air but when they would come to a fork in the road Thomas would fret for a long time about which road to take.  Then, having made a decision, would worry that the other road, "the road not taken," would have been a better choice.  She went on to say that Frost found it funny that so many people had found inspiration in the verses because he actually intended the meaning to be ironic. 


  This got me thinking about the "what if" game that we all tend to play so often when things don't seem to measure up to our expectations.  You can apply this idea to just about every aspect of life, love, career, etc.  "If only I had made this decision instead of that one, things would be different."  I suppose the old proverb about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence would apply here, too.  The funny thing is, the grass IS always greener from the other side of the fence.  You see, it depends on your point of view.  


  If you are standing at a distance, say in your own yard looking across the fence at your neighbors yard, you see an angled view of the grass.  All you see is the green of the fresh blades.  These fresh green blades of grass hide the dead thatch between them and the lawn appears greener, from that point of view.  However, standing on your own lawn looking straight down, it becomes very difficult to overlook the dead thatch that appears so obviously between the fresh green blades from this perspective.  It's an optical illusion, you see.  


  I suppose this is a long way of saying that taking the road less traveled by actually makes no difference at all.  Each way lends itself to it's own version of triumphs and trials.  It becomes dangerous to assume that one side of the fence is greener than the other without taking into account the proper perspective.  In times of trial it is easy to long for the chance to go back to the fork in the road and take the other path.  On the other hand, it is just as likely that having taken the other path, that version of ourselves would be longing for the chance to take the road that we find ourselves on now.  It is possible to loose a lot of time and effort longing for the road not taken.  It is far more difficult to live in the moment and hope for times of triumph when currently enduring times of trial.