The Jiminy Cricket Effect (More to the Point, How Robert Frost Became My Conscience)

I do truly believe that Robert Frost was a genius, especially when he wrote such deep and defining poems, such as "Fire and Ice", "My November Guest", and "Design": poems that speak on the nature of us and of the world around us. Yet, and though it is very cliche, I do believe that his best work to define the human experience is "The Road Not Taken". We go through life by making choices - at every turn, we are making choices. Should I go out tonight, or stay in? If I stay in, do I eat something and go to bed, or do I stay up and watch TV, or perhaps do I open that bottle of chardonnay and mourn not going out? Do I text the man I've been thinking about and ask him to dinner, or do I watch my phone in hopes that maybe he texts me? And what about that time he drove me home, and I didn't kiss him before leaving, even though I wanted to?Do I sleep in this morning (the answer is often yes), or do I rise early and make the most out of my day? We take certain turns in our paths in life, and that is what "The Road Not Taken" discusses.

Robert Frost not only ponders the concept that we live by our decisions and that perhaps taking the less obvious choice or the less popular choice is fairer, but he also, in an almost despairing tone, remarks on the phenomenon that once a choice is made, it cannot be undone and cannot be returned to. There are few things in my life that make more sense to me than this. One does have to live with the consequences of one's actions, thus dictating how one is obligated to live: reaping what one wishes to sow. It is almost the Golden Rule. Not quite, though - there are times when we must be cruel in order to be kind, even though no one really likes being the reciprocate of that treatment, for better or for worse.

At any rate, after having read this poem, it has become quite clear to me: when I come to a fork in the road, choose the road I will not regret having taken, the one that suits me best, the one that will benefit my world more. In doing so, I do believe I will become a happier person for it.


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, 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 onto 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.