As I stand in the crossroads of the woods, divided by a single tree, I am reminded of the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. If you haven’t read or heard it it is about a person deciding between two choices, and as his deciding which choice he has to make he examines other people decisions. One decision, or in Frost’s poem a path, is more often chosen and more often taken while the other, as I like to imagine, is new or foreboding, but it is not until one reaches the end where we learn which one he took. It is not until this person looks back on his life and realizes he or she took the path less traveled on.
I am now reaching age where I am about to make a decision, a decision that will govern my life until the end. My choices will determine my job, my social life, and my husband. It seems so much for an 18 year old to decide, but millions of seniors in high school around the world make this decision in May. Last fall, I toured a bunch of colleges, and out of the nine or ten I toured I only liked 2 or 3. I found myself comparing all the other schools I was touring to those schools. Now as I look back I have no idea how or why I compared, but all the college students I know say the school that is meant for you just clicks, and for me those 2 to 3 schools did. Now, as we are entering a non normal state of life where SAT scores have been waived and one is stuck at home more. I have time to look back on the choices I made, and I wonder if I was too harsh or too quick to judge.
I often am guilty of being too quick to judge, and I wonder how much that changed my life. I wonder how my snarky side changed people’s views and created loss opportunities. But as I look at these two paths in this forest, I realize that it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. You made the choices you made and there is no time machine or wormhole that will take you back no matter how much you want it too. You have to live with the consequences, whether good or bad, to make it to the next choice, and then hope you make the right one. When I was younger I would have told you I would have taken the road less traveled on and currently I like to think I am, but I won’t know and nobody does until the end. With that in mind we need to live our lives to the fullest and make the decisions we want to make and not let the pressure of your peers, friends, or family decide it for you because it is your life to live.
Life Through Nature 