Choices in life

The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

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.

Have you ever regret for whatever decisions that you have made?. Eventhough I believe everything is fated to us but sometimes I do regret.

My siblings have often commented that I have a bad sense of direction in a road or even in life. I recall having this sense of confusion and anxiety about choosing the right direction and making decisions starting from my schooldays. For example when I was in form four, I have to choose to go to science or social science stream. I choosed science stream and as a consequences I lost few of my best friends after they when to the social science stream. I passed the exam but when I was in university I ddn't even majoring in science. There is a little bit regret for that decisions.

Eventhough I believe everything has been fated to us but as a normal human, sometimes my life still goes on questioning whether I could have done things differently. It seems that I regularly encounter difficult decisions and constantly wonder if I made the right choice. I always want to pick both options, even though I know it is not possible. For some people, choosing what to do is very simple but I seem to dwell on the choices I am presented with and often regret the decision before its impact is recognized. After I finally reach a decision, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if I made a different choice. Where would the other road have taken me? Then I will answer it to myself, just leave it to Allah. The next day i will think back about my choice ( I hope that my friends in UUM will not bored with my call talking about my choices)

This constant second-guessing and the feeling that I missed out on something vital seems to haunt me. I find myself questioning everything that I do, reflecting upon the past and things that do not matter now, instead of looking toward the future. I constantly get caught replaying the same message in my head — “What if . . .?” — and wonder what could have happened if I had done something differently. Would it have changed my life, or would it have not affected me at all?

I never took English literature during my school days and I'm not really interested in literarature but from my understanding ( sorry if I did a wrong interpretation) what this poem meant, for I too shared these familiar concerns and emotions. Traveling the road of life is something that we all must do, whether we like it or not. We may not always be happy with the choices with which we are faced, and may even regret the decisions we have made, wishing we had “taken the other road,” but in the end those choices and experiences, whether good or bad, shape who we are as unique individuals.

The last line of the poem, “And that has made all the difference,” I can relate it to my own life. There have been countless times when I could have made a different decision, not knowing if the outcome would have been better or worse. It helped me recognize that choosing one thing over another is not an easy task, and that not liking the outcome is entirely possible, but whatever you choose you must learn to live with it, because sometimes just making the decision offers a sense of accomplishment. Instead of dwelling on the past and on things that we cannot change (you can't turn back the clock), we must simply move on and look toward the future, making the best decisions that we can along the way.

When I think it back it is normal to have anxiety and that it is human nature to second-guess ourselves. So while we may not be able to control the future, we can at least try to improve it by learning from the past.