A Call to the Road Less Traveled

Many – and maybe most – of us will be familiar with poet Robert Frost’s arguable most famous stanza:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

This has long been a call for people to follow the less traveled path and to discover and experience things that are uncommon. It speaks to the adventurer in all of us and encourages us to not be afraid but to boldly travel where others may not.

While I cannot say that I have always followed Mr. Frost’s advice, I do believe that I have often ventured down unfamiliar paths and occasionally blazed new trails. And I have almost always been delighted with what I have found.

One of my favorite examples of this happened shortly after I graduated. I was living in Columbus, OH while my brother was in Cincinnati still going to school. It was July 3rd and I remember calling him up and asking if he wanted to go with me the next day – it being a holiday, of course – to travel 10 hours to Philadelphia.

Growing up, my family would make the drive there to visit our grandmother every summer. She’d moved closer to us a few years before and had recently passed away, and I thought it would be a fun road trip for us to make to visit her old neighborhood. Unfortunately, my brother was too loaded down with classwork so he took a pass.

Still, I wanted to go somewhere so I decided to drive to Pittsburgh instead. Why? Well, I’d never been and it would be a shorter drive for me to do solo.

Mind you, this was before everyone had GPS so I mapped out my route following the interstates, got to Pittsburgh no problem, did the tourist thing for a few hours and then started to drive back. However, I decided at the last minute that I would take the back roads to get home. I pulled out my road atlas (again, no GPS) and figured out which local roads and highways I’d need to travel.

It was a truly beautiful drive if a bit longer and more meandering than what I’d seen that morning. However, the really awesome part of the day occurred next. I saw this billboard for a local toy store and decided to pull off and try my luck at finding it. It took a while and I eventually did (remember – no GPS and I’m in rural eastern Ohio at this point). Even better, they were open on the 4th of July!

I pulled up to find that it was an old ranch home someone had converted into a little toy shop. Walking in, there were a couple of kids and the owner in there who gave me a friendly nod & wave. I started to look around and found that they had all this section with all these tin wind-up toys so I decided to pick up one as a souvenir.

As I was checking out, I noticed this picture of a gumball machine hanging on the wall behind the counter. It looked a little different, however, and kind of 3-D. So I pointed to it and asked, “Is that…?” As I trailed off, the man smiled, reached up and turned the nob at the bottom of the frame – and a gumball dropped out into his hand. It was a working gumball machine, albeit in a picture frame. I quickly added it to my order.

I made it home safely and, reflecting on my day, realized that I had just had an important life lesson or three just occur. First, I had had an idea that, while kind of silly, I wanted to pursue – to take a last-minute road trip with my brother. Second, when my brother wouldn’t go along (albeit, for good reason), I didn’t let that stop me and so I still went on an adventure. And, finally, I had followed Mr. Frost’s advice on my way home and found myself somewhere I had never known existed. In short, my life was richer because I let myself dream, I didn’t let obstacles stop me but instead adapted my plans as needed, and I chose to do some exploring.

So the next time you have the chance to have an adventure – be it big or small – I encourage you to not automatically say “no” and then give all these reasons why it’s not practical. Instead, ask yourself “why not?”. Depending on how you answer, you may just find yourself with a very cool gumball machine on your wall.

Know that I’m pulling for you!

As an interesting aside, I read an interesting piece by David Orr who points out that Robert Frost’s poem is somewhat misinterpreted as there’s an earlier stanza in the poem that indicates that both paths are equally well traveled. I don’t think that necessarily lessens the impact of the ending but is kind of fascinating. If you’d like to read Mr. Orr’s original post, you can find it here.