The Road Not Taken

"We are never prepared for what we expect." ~James A. Michener

Robert Frost wrote a poem that is sometimes mistakenly called "The Road Less Traveled." It is a well-known poem and one that will make you give pause to think about decisions made in life.

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 undergroth;

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


There are generally two interpretations of this poem. The popular one is where people take the last couple lines literally. They view them as being individualistic, not going with the crowd.

Myself, I prefer to take the poem as an ironic interpretation when reading those lines in the entire context of the poem. It seems to me that the poem is about making decisions in life, and rationalizing the decisions that we make, either with joy or pain.

We move through our lives planning and trying to figure out where our decisions will lead us. And even though we plan, we never seem to be fully prepared for where we end up. So whether we plan to take a road less traveled, the freeway or sit by the side of the road; are you ready to deal with the outcome of your decisions?

My advice is to continue with your plans, make your decisions and reach your destinations. But also be ready to accept the decisions you have made. It is equally important to achieving all that you want in life.

Getting Back Up

Jack and Jill by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The American songwriter/singer, Ben Harper said, “If I fall, I fall. I'll rise up like anybody else.” Each of us is going to have those times when life has knocked us down to the ground. The hill we were climbing causes us to slip and tumble back to the bottom. Think of the old children’s nursery rhyme, “Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.”

The rhyme says that Jack got up and ran home. But my version says, “Jack got up, and dusted off, determined to go on. Back up the hill, along with Jill, to catch the rising sun.” A way of saying, “keep pursuing your dreams.” The only thing that can keep you from pushing forward is YOU. When YOU fall, it is YOU that determines if YOU will get back up.

Your Own Understanding of who YOU are will make the decision of getting back up either easy or hard. By having a positive attitude, it is more likely that you will bounce back up and try again. If you are a negative person, chances are you will stay stretched out on the ground.

All of this isn’t to say that there no difficult challenges to face. I have been through some of those challenges. The process of getting back up and battling through those challenges is not an easy task. But overcoming the challenges was an even greater reward.

Your life will be greater and you will get to see the sunrise in the morning, (aka, your dreams fulfilled). So get up and start heading back up that hill. There is water to fetch, seeds to plant and dreams to harvest.

Infinitely Heroic

Infinitely Heroic

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." -Arthur Ashe

Would you lift a car to save another person? What if that car were on fire at the time? That is exactly what several people did in Salt Lake City recently when an unfortunate accident occurred. A car, a motorcycle, and the driver of the motorcycle injured and trapped beneath a burning car.

Bravery or heroism are words we apply to such people. As one of these fine people said, "That's a big title. I don't consider myself a hero. It's just our humanity ... Everyone is going to help." A very well-said comment in that as people, we simply help take care of each other. In these instances, you can not stand silent and not do something.

Each and every day we do things that are heroic in nature. The big ones are lifting a burning car off an injured man. Or racing up several flights of stairs in a burning building to save people. Maybe even putting your life on the line to protect a nation or a community.

There are also deeds done that make you a hero just in serving other people in small ways. We hold a door open for the person carrying groceries or giving a smile to the stressed out bank teller. A father playing with his kids, or a mother applying a bandaid to a skinned knee.

You have the opportunity each and every day to do something good for another. It is the big and little things we do, serving others, that creates a million heroes. You may not wear a skin-tight action hero outfit but what you do for others will make you look like you do.

And as the quote from one of the 'car lifters' said, "it's just our humanity." When we look out for each other, when we help each other, we in turn are looked after. Be a hero today, do something good and see your life, your best life, become even better.

Success From Failure

"Failure is an event, never a person." -William D. Brown

There are stories which run the full length of history about failure. Stories which tell us how failure is turned into success. Stories which remind us that failure is not a destination but a short term experience.

Everyone is familiar with 3M Post-It Notes. The basic story is of a man named Spencer Silver who worked in the 3M research laboratories. In the late 1960s, he was working on developing a strong adhesive to incorporate it to some of 3M’s current products. After some trial and error he developed an adhesive, but to his own disappointment, it was even weaker than what 3M already manufactured at the time. It stuck to things but could easily be lifted off.

He tried finding uses for it within 3M with little success. Then four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in his church’s choir. He used bookmarkers to keep his place in the hymnal but they kept falling out. Then he remembered Silver’s weak adhesive and he used it to coat his bookmarkers. Surprise! With the weak adhesive the bookmarkers stayed in place, yet lifted off without damaging the pages.

From failure, success is born.

• Henry Ford went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor and went bankrupt numerous times before he built Disneyland.
• Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. A teacher described him as “mentally slow."
• The movie Star Wars was rejected by several movie studios before 20th-Century Fox decided to produce what is one of the largest grossing movies in film history.
• After Fred Astaire's first screen test, a memo from the testing director at MGM in 1933 said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Fred Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his home.
• Babe Ruth, considered one of the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.
• Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone with the Wind was turned down by more than twenty-five publishers.
• In 1954, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere… son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
• Dr. Seuss ' first children's book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. The twenty-eighth publisher, Vanguard press, sold six million copies of the book.

Failure occurs a million times a day. What matters is the million times people got back up and tried again.

You have the ability to move on and try again and again. Only you can keep you from doing so. You will learn from the failure and you will succeed. So get up from the failure, get past the failure, learn from the failure and achieve something greater.