The Road Not Taken

Note: This post was a haught mess yesterday. I hope it appears more legible today... Good afternoon everyone!! It's been two (er, or four) weeks and I've been struggling to get back out there and make writing a regular task again. Life goes on... I have no idea what I'm going to write about today except maybe that I want to talk a little about purpose. Is it overrated? I mean of course I recognize that I have a purpose. I know that I wasn't the result of millions of years of evolving amoebae and slime or a huge explosion that somehow miraculously formed planets and life with detail and order and mathematical precision. Nope, not buying it. I guess when I say purpose I wonder if the emphasis that is placed on purpose is misguided. Is EVERYONE really supposed to be famous? Seriously, like is real purpose when hundreds, thousands or millions know my name but don't know me? What about those people who live and love and die who never get on television or published in Who's Who and may not even own a television? Was his or her life a wasted one? I don't know; just putting it out there, I guess. I'm thinking about my life's purpose because my life is at a crossroads. It's not that I don't have any options or choices: I actually have more than I bargained for. How can I describe it? Maybe it's like the poem by Robert Frost called The Road Not Taken. If you have time, read and really meditate on the words:

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;

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,

both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked 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.

--Robert Frost

I think this poem really sums it up for me. We have so many choices, so many talents, so many options, but one option appeals to me more than all the others: To take the road less travelled. It's convenient to choose to common paths (college/university, trade school are great ways to build knowledge and skill sets). It's convenient to be like everyone else. The fact is, you don't meet up with much resistance and its probably just easier to get along in this life. In this world of sheep and herd mentality it's so easy to choose the lower, broad road and to do what most everyone else is doing. There is a pull to let the status quo equal purpose. At the end of the day, I feel that status quo/culture/convention is just someone else's ideal of the meaning of life. People fight and claw and stress and die trying to obtain someone else's comfort zone masquerading as true purpose. Some people live and die never taking the time to see if the path they were on is where they really wanted to go or if there was ever another path to choose. Some people just get carried along by the others on the path they were standing near and never stop to question where the mob was going. Ok, I realize that it's not wrong to lead a "normal" life. I'm not saying that everyone should join PeaceCorps and I'm not saying that having a "typical life" is wrong. If that is the path a person wants to choose to do, then more power. The idea is clear for me: There are two paths; There is wear and tear on both paths; both paths had not been travelled in a while, but in the end it was the path that held a little more intrigue, a few more mysteries that called to Robert Frost and that calls to me. Going down a different path may never lead you back to the other road, but I want to see the difference taking the road less travelled by makes in my life... How about you? Let me know your thoughts!