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

I first ran across this poem in college and though without many life experiences, it nonetheless powerfully drew me to ponder the meaning of the words.  At the time, I was debating whether to turn my Army ROTC training into active duty service or stay in the Reserves upon graduation.

Today, Army reservists are regularly pulled onto active duty for tours overseas however during my college years, the Vietnam War was behind us, all had been calm for years, and the current world hostilities were unimagined.

I debated for a time whether to go onto active duty and this verse spoke to me during that time.  The unknown of a choice slightly off the beaten track beckoned to me and in the end, I chose what seemed to me the road less traveled when I chose to go directly onto active duty for 3 years following college graduation and commissioning as a young lieutenant.

I have always been glad I made the decision to do something that felt “harder” for me.  I was still somewhat shy at the end of those college years and I knew that the active duty experience was likely to push me out of my comfort zone.  It did and I’m glad it did as I am a better person now for the experience.

My oldest son just embarked down a new path of life last Monday.  He was sworn in as a police officer for a small municipality somewhere in the Midwest.  He sent us a picture of his badge.  Yes!  He is a real, live sworn-in police officer now.  It’s a town I had not heard of before but it seems to be a tightly knit community and police department and I think it’s going to be a great fit for him.

The path I chose after college created a life experience for me that molded me into the person that I am today.  For my eldest son, this past week, he started down his own path, the culmination of nine years of working towards his dream.  Good for him.  May this “road less traveled” for him set into motion the life experiences that define who he becomes in the decades to come.