The Road Not Taken

New Year's Eve represents a good opportunity for reflecting on what has just passed and on what may lie in the year ahead. More than any other time of the year (except perhaps birthdays) you wonder how you may change things (wanting to 'improve' is hopelessly positive). In the spirit of this I post Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken", one of my personal favourites and wonderfully apt given the circumstances.

1. 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 wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.