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We each make our own path<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014Patricia Maurice, May 2017<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Several weeks ago, as I was listening to NPR on my car radio, I caught part of a debate on the meaning of Robert Frost\u2019s much-loved poem, \u201cThe Road Not Taken.\u201d\u00a0Apparently, English majors have been debating for decades whether or not the traveler in the poem purposely took the path \u2018less traveled by\u2019 or, perhaps more correctly, whether the traveler could even tell which path was more or less traveled when deciding which way to proceed.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to know for sure when the poem, itself, is full of contradictions and as opaque as the yellow wood it describes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve encountered this poem many times over the years, as it has become an anthem for those of us who choose to live more or less offbeat, eccentric, unconventional lives. We wear our Road Less Traveled t-shirts as a badge of honor. And, why not?\u00a0It\u2019s part of the American way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But, as someone who has lived much of her life mucking about on hiking trails, whether wooded or not, I don\u2019t think choosing the way \u2018less traveled\u2019 is the main point of the poem. After all, the title of the poem is not \u201cThe Road Less Traveled\u201d but rather \u201cThe Road Not Taken\u201d\u2014which is, to say, the road more<\/em>traveled in this particular poem.\u00a0 To me, the poem delves far more deeply into a basic philosophy of life\u2014a philosophy I like to think of as \u2018just forge ahead and enjoy yourself\u2019. Or perhaps better stated\u2026 \u2018don\u2019t be afraid to embrace adventure\u2019.\u00a0 Maybe even: ‘life, like poetry, shouldn\u2019t be taken either too literally or too seriously’.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Consider yourself the traveler in the poem, perhaps a hiker making your way along a wooded path. Suddenly, you come to a fork in the road.\u00a0 There is no trail sign\u2014no way to tell which of the two similar looking paths is the main route or which is the \u2018right\u2019 path to take.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been in this situation many more times than I can count, and it’s part of the fun. Taking an unmarked path has led to some memorable adventures: seeing a waterfall I never knew existed or climbing a mountain peak or meeting an interesting fellow traveler who became a life-long friend. Other times\u2014like when it\u2019s starting to hail small boulders or I\u2019m already running late for meeting my spouse at a pre-designated location\u2014 an unmarked fork can be reason for minor panic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note, though, the traveler in the poem doesn\u2019t do what many a hiker, including yours truly, has done in countless such situations. He doesn\u2019t mutter a curse about how poorly maintained the trail system is and resolve to write a letter of complaint that the route isn\u2019t properly signed. He doesn\u2019t pull out his handy-dandy GPS\u2014all right, they didn\u2019t have GPSs in Robert Frost\u2019s days, but they certainly had compasses and maps\u2014and diligently figure out which path to take. He doesn\u2019t pull out his lunch, park his butt on a rock, and wait for someone to mosey down one of the paths and explain where it leads.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t turn back to the comfort of the well known path he just came from.\u00a0Instead, he peers ahead a bit, shrugs his shoulders, opts for the path that looks a little greener and perhaps a little less heavily trodden, and then forges ahead.\u00a0 And, apparently, once he realizes he\u2019s not on a heavily trodden, smooth, easy, popular route, he doesn\u2019t turn around but rather embraces the joys and challenges of a road less traveled.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That attitude \u2014 \u00a0\u00a0\u2018let\u2019s explore this interesting looking path and enjoy wherever it takes us in life\u2019 \u2014 is, to my mind, the main message of the poem.\u00a0Let\u2019s face it, no matter how well mapped out or heavily trodden or popular a given path may be, we never really know where it will take us.\u00a0 There are no clear signposts in life.\u00a0 When we come to an uncertain fork, we can panic, we can pull out all our maps and tools and try to intellect our way through, we can wait for someone else to come along and give us directions, we can turn back and run for the safety of the known\u2026 or, like the intrepid traveler in Robert Frost\u2019s poem, we can forge ahead with a spirit of adventure. If we\u2019re true to ourselves and perhaps a little bit lucky, we might just stumble upon a road less traveled.\u00a0 In any case, we should embrace it as the road\u00a0<\/em>we chose<\/em>, whether deliberately or not.<\/p>\n By embracing life and treating it like the adventure it is, we will indeed have made all the difference\u2014not just to ourselves but to everyone we know and love.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps with that attitude, we can\u2019t help but choose ‘the path less traveled by’ because it’s our own individual path.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And oh, what a great adventure it will be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We each make our own path \u2014Patricia Maurice, May 2017 Several weeks ago, as I was listening to NPR on my car radio, I caught part of a debate on the meaning of Robert Frost\u2019s much-loved poem, \u201cThe Road Not Taken.\u201d\u00a0Apparently, English majors have been debating for decades whether or not the traveler […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2760,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/patriciamaurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}