The Road Not Taken, By Robert Frost

A year ago I was sitting in a variety of classrooms, learning a variety of subjects that were more or less interesting. But while I was learning these more or less interesting subjects, I was internally debating the wisdom of a four-year college degree. After all, my major was English Literature and Writing, and that wasn't going to immediatly land me a job when I graduated. At least, not the type of job I wanted.

The following poem, which we studied in American Lit that semester, in many, many ways describes what I was feeling then (and have felt since). It is written by my favorite of the modern poets, Robert Frost, who manages to be simple, beautiful, and understandable in an age when the face of poetry was fast changing.


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.

I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the differance. Who knows? Only God can truly see where our paths will take us. All we can do is take the one that he seems to be pointing too, and pray for guidence every time we come to a fork in the road.

One thing I should probably make clear- I haven't totally abandoned higher education. At some point I'm going to finish my degree so that I can someday homeschool my children. But at this point in my life it doesn't make sense to be sitting on a college campus, when I could be doing other things like, say, making "The Shadow of the Bear" into a film or nannying four amazing children.