I apologize for the six month hiatus, I'm sure many of you have forgotten this blog even exists. (To be honest, there were many times that I did.) These past months have been a season of reflection, formation, and seasonal depression, and I have simply been too drained to write. But now that the sun is out and stays awake for most of the day, life is seeping back into my soul again and I feel energized to write again.
I thought about presenting a "vague life update" in which I vaguely described what is going on in my life and the decisions my husband and I are presently facing, but I decided against it. For now, I will simply write about decision-making itself and hopefully later write a "not-so-vague life update" once we know where our life is headed.
Spoiler alert: I am not pregnant, nor plan to be anytime soon.
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| Vincent Van Gogh: Undergrowth with Two Figures |
I am sure many of you are familiar with Robert Frost's 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 yellow wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Many of us like to skip to the end where individuality is prided as the traveler declares "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." But if we read every other line of this poem, we see that is not what this is really about.
Frost paints the picture of a traveler who happens upon two roads diverging, and being only one person, he is pained he cannot travel both. So he looks down one as far as he can see and decides to take the other, hoping to someday come back and take the first. Yet he knows the nature of traveling, he knows the road he chose will take him to many other roads, leaving a grim chance he shall return to the other. The poem closes with the traveler pondering of how he will tell the story. In hopes to assure his decision of the road he chose, he triumphantly claims, "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference."
Frost eloquently captures the inner turmoil of decision-making. Most often, life presents us with two equally desirable roads. We long to travel both to see where they lead so we can make our decision with full knowledge of the future. But we lament, because we are one human with one life so we cannot. In our limited state, we must choose which path to take before we start walking. So we pick one. Sometimes we feel instant relief, certain this was the right road. Other times we still feel unsure half way down the road, but we keep walking because there is no turning back. Regardless of what happens, we tell ourselves that the road we chose changed our life forever, it has made all the difference.
No matter how greatly I desire the simplicity of decision-making, I know from experience it is much more complex. I have found there are two giants standing in the way of progress: immobility and regret.
When faced with a fork in the road, we can stand for hours, days, months, even years debating with ourselves the pros and cons of each road. But the immobility that comes from indecision is much more detrimental than choosing the "wrong road." We allow this decision to consume our entire being and suddenly we stop contributing to society. We become paralyzed by fear and hope that eventually the road will decide for us.
Once we have chosen which road to take, it is all to easy to feel regret. What if I had chosen the other road, how would my life look different? What if I took the other job, would I have more money? What if I transferred schools, would I have a more marketable degree? What if, what if, what if? Remorse, like indecision, keeps us from living in the present. If our heads are constantly turned back, gazing on the fork in the road, how will we be able to see what is put in front of us? If we are constantly wanting to go back to where the roads diverged, we wouldn't truly see how great the path is we are on now.
I want to conclude with an encouragement. When two roads diverge, odds are they equally lay. Either road can have the better claim. As a professor of mine once said,
When God presents us with choices in life,
we're usually not choosing between good and evil,
we're choosing between good and good.
