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 marked 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.
The “Road Not Taken” was originally published in the August 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly by Robert Frost, an American poet. It is now widely considered to be one of the most popular works of American literature.
In short, the situation which we are in is the product of our own choices or regrets in life which has shaped who we are.
We often imagine the road not taken would have been better, ignoring the inevitable, unforeseen vicissitudes. Frost echoes this sentiment though he is ambivalent about whether the roads are really different. The important point is that the writer made a choice, and that commitment led to a series of events that shaped his life and made ‘all the difference’.
