Life is a long road, where there is a lot of obstacles to go through and decisions to make, even if it is really hard sometimes because it plays with our future. Every choice we make, guides us to a different destiny and often leaves us in doubt, asking ourselves constantly questions starting with “what if? “. Would not it be nice to always have signs to tell us which road to take when we face important decisions? Unfortunately, most of the time there is not, probably because we have to find out what reserves us our future. The poem “The Road Not Taken” written by Robert Frost, made me discover a new side of me.
I had never been really interested to poetry until I read this poem, which totally changed my vision of life, inspired me, and touched me very deeply. To begin with, when I read the poem “The Road Not Taken”, I noticed there were two different ways to understand it, literally and figuratively. Literally, the poem is about a wayfarer who is walking in the woods and has come to a fork which has two roads. The wayfarer has to make a big decision, choose one of the two roads because he cannot travel both. He analyses both roads and decided to go with the road less traveled and realized that he cannot back.
At the end of the poem, the wayfarer says that his choice, the road less traveled, has made all the difference. Figuratively, the poem can be associated to a person’s life. In the poem, the wayfarer is someone who has two choices, which are illustrated by two roads in the woods. The wayfarer takes in consideration both choices and all sides of them by analyzing the trails. It is impossible for the wayfarer to come back to the other road such as in life when a choice is made. The wayfarer must choose between the choices that many people make or the one that few make. Each person has to face at least one situation in their lives.
A situation that everyone struggle with to put their life on the right road. The road which leads them to what they believe to be happiness. When I read for the first time the poem “The Road Not Taken”, I felt like I could have been the wayfarer of this poem because I found myself once in a similar situation. I mostly liked this poem because I have been able to associate myself to the figurative side of the poem. One of the most important decisions I have made in my life, was the road less traveled by the others and believe me, taking this path in life is most of the time much harder.
To step away from what is normal in our society, and to go the way you think is right and challenging yet often rewarding, is not easy. Three years ago when I was in college, I was not so sure about the choice of my future career. All my friends had decided to go to the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, but I was not sure if I wanted to. I always wanted to improve my English, so I decided to do an immersion of one year in the suburbs of New York. I was an Au Pair in a family and it was hard but worth it. I lost a lot of friends included my boyfriend, and everybody had a year in advance but I found a great road to live my life.
When I came back home, I applied at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi to become an English teacher and that is why it was worth it, because I know now more than ever what I want in my life and I do not regret the choice that I have made. The road we choose helps determine the kind of person we are and the life we lead. I am proud of myself because I have chosen the road less traveled and that has made all the difference because it led me to a satisfying life. The author of the poem “The Road Not Taken” writes about being sorry he could not travel both paths, and in reality we sometimes feel the same way.
Every decision has advantages and disadvantages. All of the choices could have the potential for surprises, joys, and sorrows. Unfortunately, we must choose only one and cannot go back to see what it would have been like to choose the other. Would we have better lives if we could see what might have been on the other side? Of course, this cannot happen in real life, but most of us wish it could at some point in our lives because making decisions is a hard procedure. There are choices we must make instantaneous, and others that keep us up at night. Both kinds of choices are vital in life, and can have everlasting consequences.
If we were allowed to go back and see what would have happened if we would have made a different choice, we would either be happy or sad about our decision. More than likely, we would have a mixture of emotions. But in any case, the next choice we would have to make in our life would not be made any easier it could be even harder. If we are happy about the choices we have made in the past, it would make us worry about what making bad choices would be like, and if we were unhappy, we would worry about continuing on the same way, bad choices. One thing for sure is that you must live with and eventually die with the choices you make.
