Eutrusca
07-01-2006, 13:50
COMMENTARY: I have had an incredibly full life, even if I die tomorrow. This little essay, which I got in an email, offers some of the best advice I have ever read. Be! Do! Dare! Take the less-used fork, the less-used path. When you look back, it will be the journey you remember, not the various destinations. This is wisdom, Grasshopper! :)
Detours
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.
-- Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken"
All the difference, indeed, for me and for numberless others through the generations. What a difference in my life to have stopped by woods on a snowy evening, to have walked in the autumn woods thinking that nothing gold can stay, to have watched the people on the beach neither out far nor in deep, to have spoken to my neighbor while mending the fence between us! All the difference between living and merely existing.
As we walk our separate roads, occassionally meeting or just waving at each other in passing, we pass through many crossroads. How many do we even notice? We fix our eyes on our destination and our minds on the most direct path, forgetting that it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey. It's the paths less traveled by that make all the difference. When we reach our destinations, we want to be able to say: "It was worth the trip."
As you walk through this new year, I encourage you to pay attention to the crossroads, the forks in the road. Stop and consider. Take the one grown up in weeds, sometimes. It's scary, sure. None of us know what monsters may lie in wait around the bend, but we must face our monsters. We must prove our worth. Some of us are destroyed by them, sure, but those who face their monsters with determination and honesty will win through. Scarred, probably, battered, oh yeah, but victorious, nonetheless. Better to take the road less traveled now than to get to the end and find all those monsters gathered there in a bunch.
Writers who stay on the pavement get nowhere. Nobody wants to see interstate America. The dirt roads and shanty-towns are vastly more interesting. Throw the maps out the window. Take that left turn at Albuquerque. Show us what you find out there in the wilderness.
I don't want to reach the end of my life, look back, and say: "Damn! I wish I'd gone another way." I want to say: "That was interesting. That was fun. I'd do it again, if I could."
Carter Nipper
Detours
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.
-- Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken"
All the difference, indeed, for me and for numberless others through the generations. What a difference in my life to have stopped by woods on a snowy evening, to have walked in the autumn woods thinking that nothing gold can stay, to have watched the people on the beach neither out far nor in deep, to have spoken to my neighbor while mending the fence between us! All the difference between living and merely existing.
As we walk our separate roads, occassionally meeting or just waving at each other in passing, we pass through many crossroads. How many do we even notice? We fix our eyes on our destination and our minds on the most direct path, forgetting that it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey. It's the paths less traveled by that make all the difference. When we reach our destinations, we want to be able to say: "It was worth the trip."
As you walk through this new year, I encourage you to pay attention to the crossroads, the forks in the road. Stop and consider. Take the one grown up in weeds, sometimes. It's scary, sure. None of us know what monsters may lie in wait around the bend, but we must face our monsters. We must prove our worth. Some of us are destroyed by them, sure, but those who face their monsters with determination and honesty will win through. Scarred, probably, battered, oh yeah, but victorious, nonetheless. Better to take the road less traveled now than to get to the end and find all those monsters gathered there in a bunch.
Writers who stay on the pavement get nowhere. Nobody wants to see interstate America. The dirt roads and shanty-towns are vastly more interesting. Throw the maps out the window. Take that left turn at Albuquerque. Show us what you find out there in the wilderness.
I don't want to reach the end of my life, look back, and say: "Damn! I wish I'd gone another way." I want to say: "That was interesting. That was fun. I'd do it again, if I could."
Carter Nipper