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.
Each December, one of the most anticipated moments for me (outside of all the glitz and glamour of the Christmas season) is the announcement of the Time Magazine Person of the Year. The Person of the Year is the “one individual who fits the description of the person who has most profoundly influenced the world during the past year, for better or for worse.”
The reason that I love reading that issue is because it confirms to me a hypothesis that I have held since undergrad: people who change the world take untraditional paths. Or in the words of Robert Frost, they have taken the road “less traveled by.”
After graduating bschool, there was a very predictable path that I could have taken: work on Wall Street for three years, do a stint in private equity, get a Stanford or Harvard MBA, work my way to the top of a Fortune 500 company, get married and have a family, buy a house in the Hamptons with a white picket fence, retire rich, and golf for the remainder of my life.
Yes, indeed, the American Dream. Predictable, comfortable, and secure.
But how dangerous to change the world?
When life is lived in a cookie cutter fashion, the outcome is a standard, off-the-shelf cookie. But when a baker decides to venture outside of the mold and into uncharted territories, headlines are made…at least on the Food Network.
As we enter 2008, it is our hope as a church and as a movement that we take God centered risks with our lives, rejecting the paths of “success” as deemed by the world and stepping out in faith into the unknown. At times the “road less traveled by” will seem very unsafe. Those who take it will probably face great opposition, and perhaps regret not taking the path of least resistance. But history is made and the world changes by those who see resistance as opportunity and risk as excitement. And we who are followers of King Jesus are assured of one thing: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
2008, here we come!