To Tread the Path Less Travelled By

Dare and you shall discover

- Smt. Sujatha Rao

Context

What did Robert Frost mean when he said taking the road less travelled by made all the difference? We don't really know, because he left the words hanging there without mentioning what kind of a difference it made.

I have often taken the roads that were worn away with innumerable people walking on them. Occasionally, I have also taken the road that has been new and wild. No matter what I road I took, was the road waiting for me to tread on it? I guess not. It was just there, with its nonchalance about who came by to walk on it. Many a time, there wasn’t even a path. The paths were made by the people who walked on them. There were no red-carpet welcomes awaiting them, as is made to believe many a time. It's up to us to make it or leave it. Either way the path doesn’t care.

However, the first-time path maker has to cut through the vines, wade through the streams, hike through the rocks on the way and walk into the unknown with the hope that it would take him or her to something better.

More importantly, he or she has to also cut through the cobwebs of doubts that plague the mind, surmount the fears of going into the unknown that constantly threaten to derail him or her from pursuing that hitherto untrodden path. It takes enormous mental strength not to fall for the temptation to trace back the route midway and take the worn-out path, so as to play it safe.