A philosophical thinking of Robert FROST

The Road Not Taken

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.

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Standing at the fork of two roads in a yellow wood means to be confronted in front of an important choice of life. There are two ways to choose. The future is uncertain like the end of a road covered by trees. He wants to foresee the future and he hesitates to making decisions.

But how can you human predict the future ? What you see is just the present and numerous precursors, who have left some traces. However the traces are blurred by the time. So he just picks one way which is less travailed. He comforts himself by saying that "I leave the first one for another day? But will he return back? I don't think so and neither does he. The life is always a one-way travel and we can never return. He might have ask himself,"is this a good choice?" I think that he can never answer this question. How can we judge a decision in life without a second life, where we make the other decision, to compare?

This reminds me of an interesting argument in a book called "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. He says that we can never judge a choice as we cannot have a second life to compare. It is a quite philosophical reflection. We make choices after choices. So our life become one of hundreds of thousands of possible "lives". We may sometimes look back and ask ourselves, "what if I have made another decision?" The question can never be answered. Maybe we will sigh, "my life would have been another story if..." These decisions make all the differences and kill all the other possibilities at the same time. These possibilities become our dreams when we look back. And this is beauty of life.