Reflections On The Road Not Taken

I find that through out my life I have nearly always chosen the harder path, purposefully selecting studies, activities, etc. I fully knew were going to be a tough climb. It was my thought that to challenge myself was the best way to grow and test my limits. Some of these choices have been fleeting adventures (like climbing canyons, knowing I am afraid of heights) and others have become part of my current life. Some have made me stronger and have opened my eyes to reality (working for the US military and in the Baltimore ghetto) where others have, in retrospect, become more detrimental than positive.

Lately, I have been thinking about this way of proceding through life. Perhaps at times it has some merit but I also believe that in other instances it is just putting stumbling blocks in front of yourself. There is merit knowing where your fight lies within the path of least resistance. Maybe there was a reason I got lousy grades in chemistry and good grades in art.

At the time I believed, sadly to say, that my art was not as valuable as hard science and that there was more merit and future in science than there was in art. So I chose a science degree. I did enjoy science but perhaps not as much as I loved art. Art fed my mind and soul where science just my mind.

Before writing this blog I browsed the internet to read Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. I now see that the road less travelled is often our own and the merit lies in knowing and admitting it and, even more so, having the guts to take it.