"The Road Not Taken" a great motivator for coming out of the comfort zone

   

  Today is the World Poetry Day and since poetry is my favorite genre in the literature (yes, there are still people who read poetry) I wanted to collaborate with one of my favorite foreign poems. I could not miss the opportunity.

   I would love to talk about my Polish writers but the blog is in English, so I decided to post some good (American)English poetry. :)

"The road not taken" by Robert Frost 

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 wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

     Especially, the last three verses... ah, what a beautiful quote! Persona eventually chooses "the one less traveled by". Does it sound familiar? Or maybe one knows more the fear of taking the unknown path than actually choosing it. 'Cause, what if? What if the road turns out to be worse, more difficult and we will have no support around us? Simply, what if we don't succeed?  Fear is always connected with stepping out of the comfort zone. We all heard that life begins when stepping out of it. No matter how hard it is sometimes, it is indeed the truth. 

    The meaning of the locution "the less traveled by" sounds familiar to Einstein' words: "Be a loner. That gives you a time to wonder, search for the truth. Have a whole of curiosity. Make your life worth living." Probably, I have already mentioned it in earlier posts, but I'll say it again. It is important for us to learn how to spend time alone. This doesn't mean that we would be weirdos who cannot socialize with other people. This would be the reason for searching for the new. The search for new ways of being. If we follow the crowd, we won't learn anything new. And as Polish poet, Zbigniew Herbert said: "In order to reach the sources, one has to swim upstream. Only rubbish flows with the current." 

    This poem is also a reminder for me that there is ALWAYS another way. Another way to cope with a particular problem. I have a tendency of overthinking a situation or a difficulty. And every time I see this poem I get this feeling amazing something like "oh right! there can be another way out! of course!" Even though, this second choice won't be nice and easy I will decide in order to find out. :) Perhaps it will actually make all the difference. It will show me the opportunities I haven't even dreamed of.  Maybe that is why I like coming back to it. These words give me the support and I hear them saying: "Chill out, everything will be alright. Maybe even better." 



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