MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2023 POEM WEEK

 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2023 POEM WEEK

Introduction.  With my senior residents on my part-time job, I’ve been trying to keep their brains busy.  I’ve recently done Mother Goose rhymes, Aesop’s Fables, Grimms Fairy Tale, and some poems.

Today - one poem:

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.

*****

All of us came to a fork in the road sometime.  Maybe it is marriage - should I marry <person> or not.  Maybe it is a job - should I take this job - or not.  Should I get my degree in <field> or not?  Should I go to ABC College or to XYZ College?  

Decisions

But we do have to make a decision.  Frost writes “And be one traveler, long I stood” - he pondered which path to take, which road to take, which job to take, which person to marry.  

LONG I STOOD - but one can’t stand at that juncture forever.  One has to decide.  Left or Right?  

We don’t have time travel (yet), and can’t come back to that same decision again and take the other path.  

Yes, Frost could have come back to this path ten (fifteen) years later and taken the other path.  We sometimes think that way - “If only I would have <taken the first path instead of the second path>.  If only I would have married SH rather than CW?  If only I would have gone on for my master’s and Ph.D. earlier?  If only I would have found work in my dissertation (expert systems / artificial intelligence).  

BUT - we didn’t.  We made a decision - and we have to stick with it.  Even if that doesn’t work out (for example, after twenty years we divorce our spouse, or our spouse dies of a heart attack while walking across the driveway).  We don’t control our future.  The future is unknown.

At the end of life, we, like Frost, can say “And that has made all the difference”.  What if I had stayed at Dakota State University until retirement instead of moving to Quinnipiac?  What if I had gone into a different niche of information systems? 

If we start double guessing ourselves, we will lose - we will lose time, motivation, and even our mental health.  

Roy Clark (Country singer) sang “Right or Left at Oak Street” (excerpt here):

When I reach the stop sign at Oak Street

The same thought crosses my mind

Should I turn right like I always have,

Or left and leave it behind?

Right or left at Oak Street

That's the choice I face every day

And I don't know which takes more courage

The staying or the running away

He is contemplating leaving his wife, family, and job and striking out on a new path.  He might be frustrated by his relationship with his wife - it’s become too boring; maybe his kids are driving him nuts.  

Right or left at Oak Street - take path A or take path B?  

LONG I STOOD - long I debated, long I calculated a spreadsheet of option A and option B.  And, I made a decision.  

We can’t change willy-nilly.  James 1:8 in the Bible says “ “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways”

A double mind is “having in the mind opposite or opposing views at different times.”  We need to: “stop wasting time and get on with something.”

Being honest with ourselves, and making decisions with rational thought are good processes.  Going back and changing (generally) is of little value.

Have you been like Frost and come to “two paths in a yellow woods?”.  

Let Love Win (and let Love rule in your heart)

Let Love transform you as you take your unique path in life with your unique gifts and talents.

Karen Anne White, ©, February 6, 2023