MM#298--The Road Not Taken

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Rojo Minute, as is our custom, let's go right to our first pull quote. 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 wear 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 won 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. And those were the words of Robert Frost's poem, written in 1915, the Road Not Taken. And if you don't know the background and the context for this quite popular poem, at least in the United States, you might misunderstand its meaning or intention. You see, the poem was written as a kind of joke. To picture this, the year is 1912, and our good man, robert Frost, finds himself in England. It's here, amidst the quaint English countryside, that he becomes fast friends with Edward Thomas, another poet. They were pretty much inseparable, like two peas in a pod. The bond they shared was as thick as gravy on Thanksgiving, with their favorite pastime taking long, leisurely strolls together through the picturesque landscape of England. Can you imagine the kind of inspiring conversations they must have had? Now let's fast forward to one particular day when they came across two roads while out on a walk. Oh boy did the decision stump Edward. After a hearty debate and possibly a coin toss, they finally picked one road and continued their journey. You see, edward kept lamenting the fact that most likely the other road suited them better. And after repeated lines of this, our friend Robert Frost may note of it in his head kind of a trait of human nature to always be looking back on what might have been. Now, little did they know this seemingly insignificant event would later inspire one of the most famous poems in history. We just read it. Fast forward a bit more and Frost had come back to New Hampshire by 1915, and he had written and sent an advanced copy of this new poem the Road Not Taken to his dear friend Thomas Little. Did he suspect that Thomas would take it to heart, interpreting it as a commentary on his own indecisiveness? You see, folks, words can be powerful motivators and for Thomas this poem must have been the push he needed to make his significant decision in his life. You see, he enlisted in World War I and, tragically, thomas lost his life during the Battle of Aureus just two years later. The poem often champions the notion of following your own path, but that is misunderstanding it. The poem was actually written as a joke between two friends, and even Robert Frost's biographer, lawrence Thompson, says of the poem quote you have to be careful of that one. It's a tricky poem, very tricky, and perhaps, like good art or a good painting or a good song, there are multiple meanings of to help us to analyze our own lives. Now we do have Robert Frost actually commenting on his own poem in the Thompson biography that was written in 1970. Frost said of Edward Thomas's friend that he had written the poem for Thomas was quote a person who, whichever road he went, he would be sorry that he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way, and so all of this got me to thinking about a book with a similar name and which is a modern classic the Road Less Traveled by M Scott Peck. I used to have a flip calendar back in the 1980s that sat on my desk in my room and I was fascinated by the quick notes and witty nuggets of wisdom that came from that calendar. And that calendar was about the Road Less Traveled by M Scott Peck. Perhaps it was a precursor to this podcast and our zeal for hunting down these nuggets of wisdom. Not sure, but perhaps. Anyway, the modern classic the Road Less Traveled is a unique book, especially within the psychology realm. Written in 1978, it was an instant classic. The book has four parts and here's what I found is a nugget of wisdom. Let's go to that book for our first pull quote. Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult because once it's accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not see fully this truth that life is difficult. Instead, they moan more or less incessantly, noisily, subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, their difficulties, as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this morning because I have done my share. Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them? Discipline is a basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline, we can solve nothing. With only some discipline, we can solve only some problems. With total discipline, we can solve all problems. Is that not a great piece of wisdom? We all share in this moaning and regrettably need to be reminded that our moaning about our problems most often doesn't help solve our problems. Most of us want to be a victim. In fact, we strive to be a victim, we embrace being a victim. Now, later on, peck would write about this and about ourselves and our human psychology by saying this quote this tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. End of quote. Possibly that is true, quite true. He was a psychologist after all. So in today's quick, mojo minute, let us remember this wisdom from M Scott Peck and from his modern classic the Road Less Traveled. Let us accept his nudge for us towards embracing more discipline in our lives. Let us not avoid our problems so that we can only help to confront them more or less with our shoulders squared. When we do, when we begin to embrace our problems to solve them, then in fact we can read a different meaning into Robert Frost's great 1915 poem and say with it, and with more meaning now than ever, two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference. I will see you on the road of life.

Speaker 1: 10:13

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