The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost(1916)

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.

This poem isn’t just about a walk in the woods. It’s about the choices we face — the kind that shape who we become. Sometimes, the difference between two paths isn’t obvious at first. We choose one, not knowing where it leads, and only much later do we look back and see how deeply that one decision affected everything else. Frost reminds us that we can’t live both lives. We pick one version of ourselves by the road we take — and that quiet, simple moment of choice can change everything. It’s not always about choosing the harder path, but about owning the one you do take.