The Road (Not) Taken

My parents are moving out of the house they've lived in for the past 30+ years.?

I've been going through all my stuff that's still there: prom photos, gymnastics ribbons, and English class papers. I'm finding such gems and feel filled with nostalgia.

Perhaps one of my favorite things I found?was a short paper I wrote in high school on my interpretation of Robert Frost's famous poem, "The Road Not Taken"

I wrote that it's unclear whether or not the author is happy or not with his decision to have taken the road less traveled. When he says he shall be "telling this with a sigh ages and ages hence", I argued that this?sigh?could be one of relief and contentment, or one of sadness and regret.?

I went on to say that the mere fact that the poem is called "The Road Not Taken", it seemed to me that Frost was contemplating the choice he made with a sense of doubt, wondering what might have been had he taken the other path.

My teacher disagreed and wrote in the margin:?"No - he's glad he took the road less traveled"?and she deducted some points from my paper.

This week, 25+ years after I wrote that paper, I happened to have dinner with three of my friends from high school. We were reminiscing about our glory days and talked about the other paths in life we could have had had we chosen different romantic partners, jobs, or cities to live in. We all wondered how life would be different, easier, harder, better, worse.

The truth is...we didn't have the answers...and we'll never know.?

This realization reinforces the lesson I learned from Frost's poem: life's decisions are complex, and their outcomes often remain a mystery.

An?article?I recently read beautifully refers to our other alternative life as a "ghost ship" of the road we didn't choose. It emphasizes that neither choice is inherently better than the other, though we might find ourselves better suited to a particular path.?

The article goes on to say that "we must embrace the certainty that, whatever we choose (or is chosen for us), there's no way to know the path not taken. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours.?It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore."

We often find ourselves at crossroads, making decisions that shape our careers and personal lives. Sometimes, we look back with a sigh, wondering about the possibilities of the roads left untraveled.?

But perhaps a more fruitful thing to do than imagining alternatives that could have been is to imagine what you want moving forward and to work towards that.

How can you move yourself forward from wondering "what if?" about the past to "what now?" about the future?

Talk soon,

Sarah

P.S. Being the negotiator I was even back in high school, I went back to my teacher after she graded my paper and explained that we don't really know for certain what Robert Frost meant and that the poem could have two interpretations. She took my perspective to other members of the English department, they agreed with me, and she added some points back. :)

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Sarah Aviram is an international keynote speaker, employee engagement consultant and former Fortune 500 Human Resources leader from companies like PepsiCo and Avon. She’s created and delivered leadership development programs, keynote talks, and workshops to over 50,000 people at companies like Google, American Express, and Bank of America.

Sarah’s TEDx talk, “Does more freedom at work mean more fulfillment?” was featured on TED’s homepage and has over half a million views. She has an MBA in Leadership and Change Management from New York University Stern School of Business, where she’s also a guest lecturer on the topic of managing change and uncertainty.

After working remotely from 12 countries in 12 months in 2019, researching the future of work, she published the best-selling book, Remotivation: The Remote Worker’s Ultimate Guide to Life- Changing Fulfillment. Learn more at sarahaviram.com.