Articles

The Trust Road

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.

Raise your hand if you’ve read Robert Frost’s enormously famous poem before! And raise your hand if you thought you knew what it was all about... (I thought I did.)

So, a couple confessions:

Confession One:

I used to think this poem was about sticking it to all our accountant friends; our suburbanites; the squares; those that didn't travel to Europe at 21. The “road less traveled” was clearly the invitation to trail-blaze — to become a cheese-taster-slash-alpaca-babysitter-slash-nomadic barista. “So there! My life is more vivid, more chaotic, more Sagittarian than your overly-Capricorn lifestyle."

And, as often is the case, I misread the poem.

In Frost’s beloved work, I assumed the road less travelled was about choosing the better path, the one that was braver, more daring, more unique.

Confession Two:

In my own psychosynthesis coaching, I used to guide clients through this same framework — wrestling between two roads, trying to help them pick the right one. The purposeful one. The good one. With my wisdom, insight, and well-calibrated vision board, we’d get clarity, make the “correct” choice, and tie it all up with a tidy bow. Except... it didn’t really work that way. 

In real life — and in Frost’s poem — it’s rare that one decision is clearly better than the other. Sure, it happens. But most of the time? We’re choosing between two paths that are pretty similar.

What does happen is this:

We make meaning from the decisions we’ve made. We look back with grace, with humor, with awe, and say, “Ah… that’s what it meant.”

“Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” Wait — what?

That’s the line most people miss. Both roads were equally worn. Not one wild and tangled, not one smooth and paved. Just two forest paths. Different directions, equally travelled.

So why are both roads “pretty decent”?

Because that’s how life actually works.

We want big, dramatic turning points — “THIS is the decision that changed everything!”

But most of the time, we’re choosing between two good-enough options.

And the “difference” isn’t in the road — it’s in the story we tell about it later.

So what’s Frost actually saying?

Not:

“Be different! Take the untamed trail!”

But maybe:

“You won’t always know which choice is better.  Choose anyway. Walk it with heart.  And later? You’ll make meaning from it.”

The road less travelled is the one where you act with courage and trust… Even if that trust meant joining a kombucha startup in rural Saskatchewan. Or moving in with a sheep farmer named Clay and three very non-domesticated goats. So, how many of our “bold choices” were really just one of two decent-enough options? How many times have we looked back and said:

“That changed everything.”  …when really, it wasn’t what we picked — it was how we lived it that changed us?

My own life and work have shifted over the last six years. These days, I’m more at home with ambiguity. More willing to walk with humility — on a good day. On a not-so-good day, I’m swearing at the printer and wondering why thirty years of mindfulness hasn’t solved my irritability. 

And still — we walk.

The “road less taken” has become, for me, the road of trust.

Trust in the process. Trust in grace.

Trust that even when I don’t know the “right” road, I can walk meaningfully on the one I’m on.

It’s not a popular road — because it asks us to let go of outcomes, performance, and ego.  It anchors us not in being right, but in being real — even if that means wobbling a little as we go. It's very old, ancient and un-modern, actually. The myth of modernity and progress aligns closely with progressive outcomes, clarity, hyper-individualism, and excessive fitness routines. The yin qualities of life are about deepening into our wounded and rounded sense of becoming and being OK with this unfolding. It's about embracing the "You're ok" rather than striving for an ideal of perfection. 

And it’s okay.  Because meaning doesn’t have to be found in the road. It’s found in how we walk it. In how we look back with compassion.

In the story we choose to share.

We are meaning-makers, after all.  So walk on, friend. Kombucha startup and all.