![]() But we have to get past this phase - and unfortunately, too many people are getting stuck here, before the story of each decision really begins. We’d be fools not to give pause when so much hangs in the balance. Some think it even better if we never have to settle at all.Įveryone experiences what I call the “First Stanza Phase” of decision making, at least briefly, when the options are presented to us but we have yet to examine them. If only we could travel all roads if only we could actually test each option before we settle permanently on one choice. The speaker of “The Road Not Taken” agonizes over the trade-offs between just two roads - how much more sorry he would be over a multitude. The necessity of making trade-offs alters how we feel about the decisions we face more important, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from the decisions we ultimately make. Part of the downside of abundant choice is that each new option adds to the list of trade-offs, and trade-offs have psychological consequences. Schwartz writes about the overwhelming nature of having too many options - often hundreds of options per product at the supermarket, whether ketchup, cereal, or toothpaste - and concludes that the situation may, paradoxically, be bad for our ability to choose. Such is the foundation of Barry Schwartz’ The Paradox of Choice (read the book or watch the TED Talk). As the digital economy proliferates 85 years after Frost’s poem, we deal with an ever-increasing array of choices. Who could take such a step so lightly?Īnd our options are rarely limited to two roads diverged. There is something irrevocable, something permanent behind each decision and the way it makes a permanent impact on the path we take in life. Approaching a divergence in life - the choice between a variety of groceries, colleges, jobs, or candidates at the polls - fills us with trepidation. ![]() In this stanza, Frost gives voice to a particular anxiety that has become increasingly relevant to my generation. ![]() 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 This post aims to let the poem speak into our lives where and when we might be able to appreciate its voice. Once again - to be very clear - this post is not about determining the intended message of the poem, or extracting its “true” claims (I think neither is possible). ![]() The question is one of revelation: whether right or wrong, the colloquial usage of “The Road Not Taken” reveals much about the American worldview as it is played out in daily living and decision-making. The question is not about the validity or invalidity of any particular interpretation, lest poetry be a worthless endeavor. Orr is hardly the first to notice our inconsistent interpretations of Frost’s most enduring poem, but he might offer the most balanced evaluation of the disparity yet. That last bit hits home for me because I am constantly constructing a narrative of self-deception - one that dangerously regards myself as the master of my fate (though that’s from another poem for another time.) The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. Here’s the most concise evaluation in Orr’s own words:Īccording to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). Only in retrospect will the speaker evaluate his own path as making “all the difference” despite not knowing what the other path held in store. Prior lines in the poem suggest no discernible difference between the paths. The famous lines of the poem - “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference” - are significantly altered by the suggestion that the speaker may be lying.Most people misread the poem as a wholesale endorsement of American-style individualism and self-assertion.“The Road Not Taken” is the most popular and enduring poem of American culture.You are encouraged to read that article in full, but for the sake of convenience I will provide what summary I can of its more salient points before making my own. Last year, David Orr wrote a book called The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong - a compelling excerpt is found in a similarly titled article posted on The Paris Review: The Most Misread Poem in America. The Road Not Taken - A Postmodernist’s Guide to Decision-Making
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