I suppose everyone has read Robert Frost’s “A Road Not Taken”. If not, well it’s only a google-search and click away, why not?

Nonetheless, Winter is yet again upon the many tired residents of North America and well…anywhere else where it’s autumn right now. Thus, it’s time for me to accomplish something! As I rustled through old outlines for stories from perhaps a year or two ago, I found an old print-out. Scribbled next to the title “A Road Not Taken”, I found my scribbled handwriting forming the words “Autumn”.

The first line of Frost’s poem begins with “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. This is where my memory begins. 

The leaves of trees change in Autumn, for those who forgot the exact word for the time between the end of Summer to the beginning of Winter. This subtle “calm before the storm”, in which the comfortable feeling of summer has gone, and the irritable cold of winter converge. To me, I straight-forwardly shout “If it’s gonna be cold, just snow already!” as I trudge onto campus, and many people seem irritable on their way to class as well. Perhaps you have too? Nevertheless, Autumn is frequently associated with “melancholy” (as stated by Wikipedia).

Snooping around with my fail-ninja skills, I asked some of my classmates what they believe the meaning is to this poem. I’m usually met with a reply revolving around the concept of being and individual. If not, then, as stated by a close friend, the poem is about self-content, justifying our actions.

Then, I ask, why did the traveler ponder this in Autumn?

This time asking my friend who introduced me with the “justificational” interpretation, stated that autumn is merely the time of year in which the two paths would be in their worn state, and thus is there as a setting.

We all are faced with difficult decisions in our lives. Jobs have been disappearing, people are cutting back, perhaps you’re in a situation far worse than I can think of. Even now, you may look back to before all these problems began, the “summer”.

In order to continue to walk forward, we must now choose a path amidst “autumn” in our lives. It will be a difficult decision, for both roads will lead to an unforgiving “winter”. Therefore, before me, Two roads –worn down by friends, relatives, ancestors– diverge in a wood, and I, I took the path less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.