” 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.” These are the last lines in the famous poem by Robert Frost and they speak to me as clearly today as they did when I first heard them during my high school days in Kenmore, New York. In those times, we read the poem in English class because it was one of the favorites of President John Kennedy, who had been assassinated four years ago. I still remember our teacher saying how perfect the poem was for students making their career choices; decisions that would shape their individual lives and the lives of those they loved. How correct she was; those decisions helped shape the adults we would soon become.
Some of us became business leaders, others tried their hands at the performing arts, several served their military obligation or were drafted into the war, or “police action” of our day. A few never returned to Kenmore. Most of us lived quiet, unassuming lives, married or chose not to, some classmates accomplished this feat several times, and scores of us left the Buffalo area, seeking fame, fortune and happiness in warmer or less dreary climates. But we all selected our individual paths in those woods, whether we knew it then, or not. As Frost suggested, my chosen road was less traveled, although I took it, along with my wife, your mother, in 1978 when we moved from Kenmore to Connecticut to take a job with a new company, in a new field, beginning a new career I could never have possibly imagined in that small classroom in Kenmore, New York, on that crisp autumn day in 1967.
Most of our class chose to take the often-traveled path, remaining in Buffalo to this day. Some chose to pursue the career they had envisioned back then, others ventured into their own endeavors, starting companies and firms that they are now retiring from. A few selected the well-traveled path that their parents chose for them and others went into business with their high school friends. Your mother and I chose to leave Buffalo and forge our own road on the path that has led us to where we are today; a wonderful place that would have clearly been impossible to predict or even prepare for in the late 1960’s.
I once wrote and taught a Time Management training seminar that I entitled “Choices.” In that workshop, I explained to my participants that your life is often determined by the choices that you do not make. I told my students that whenever you make a choice there are always one, two, or several options you must leave behind; so do as much as humanly possible to be as certain as you can possibly be, that the path you are taking is the right one for you. Of course, you can always change your mind and take one of the other options, but, most likely, you will be very far down your selected road and many times, you will not want to return and start over. My seminar taught people how to make their best choice, day after day, week by week, year by year, so that one fine day, they would look back and smile at their choices, knowing full well that they made the choice that was right for them. The fact that they made a decision; that is what really counts. Not selecting anything is also a choice, much like riding the current on a raft. The river does all the hard work and you end up somewhere you might not want to be.
Never let other people choose that road for you, because if you do, you will utter what I call in my book, the saddest words I ever heard….. “It might have been.” Frank Sinatra had it right when he sang the lyrics of “My Way.” “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.” Those words can only be uttered by the fortunate folks who have made their own choices along the path of life; those who have listened to others, gathered their evidence and then confidently took their own unique paths in life. These confident travelers on the road of life understand that they are the only ones who know the proper path for their lives, the True North, as Stephen Covey calls it; that drives them each and every day. Choose a road, even if it happens to be the one less traveled by, but choose it you must. And then one day, you will awake and realize that Frost was indeed correct….It has made all the difference! Choose wisely, but choose.