Have you ever wondered what your life would have looked like if you had taken another path, if that love story would have gone for a lifetime, if you had taken that too good to be true job offer, or if you had just gone out with that “weird nerd?” Just as the dilemma we were presented with while reading Frost’s poem, 'The Road Not Taken,' life often presents us with instances where we must choose just one path, and then there’s no going back. It is a journey of such stumbling blocks where things get left in between, some on hold for a while, and some harrowing decisions we have to make, and then we are left cudgelling our brains out for what could have been if life turned out to be a certain different way. It is never easy to ponder what-ifs. It grills you to a maddening point.
The labyrinth of choices
We have as many possible lives as the number of chances we didn’t take and the options we did not choose. It doesn’t matter how big or small the decisions you take; it still create a complex web of endless possibilities- a life we would have lived. While some decisions are made with reason and careful thought, and others are made impulsively in the span of a heartbeat, all of these choices ripple outward, crafting the life we inhabit. But there comes a moment when we are on a halt and pause for a while to analyse our choices, or simply look back in time. In this moment, we are not only able to see the options we chose but also the ones we abandoned. It is in this awareness that the first pang of “what could have been” takes root.
Echoes of the Road Not Taken
Every life contains ghost lives—versions of ourselves that exist only in imagination. They mumble through the quiet moments- the confession we never made, the job we did not pursue, the city we never moved to. These are not just regrets but haunting reminders of that one story we couldn’t live with. They are echoes that we are always living one story out of an infinite library. Robert Frost’s proverbial “road not taken” is less a poem about bold choices and more a meditation on this lingering curiosity about the untraveled path.
The Weight of ‘What If’
It is not only the reminders that hurt, but the constant urge of our mind to fantasise about that one choice we did not make, that one life we couldn’t live. It is our propensity to always imagine the what-ifs, to weave a life that is all inside our heads. What-ifs can be delightful at times, yet crushing mostly. We carry their weight quietly through moments of rumination.
Memory as a Double-Edged Sword
Memory is a comfort provider. It lets us feel the array of emotions that we felt during that one special fleeting moment. But it can also deepen our sense of loss, sharpening the contours of roads we never walked.
Our minds have a habit of idealising the unknown and the unexplored. We always imagine the abandoned choices with a tint of glorification. Memory keeps the door to “what could have been” permanently ajar, inviting both hope and gloom to drift through.
The Convolutions of Fate
Our destiny is written, as many people say. It is not always by chance that we encounter certain things, but because of the certainty of the words embedded in the life of our book that those things are bound to happen. The convolutions of life remind us that even the paths we mourn might have wound into shadows we cannot see. It is always better to see and take life as it is and not idealise it to the point of disappointment.
Acceptance Amid Complexity
The path to peace lies not in erasing regret but in embracing the complexity of life’s design. It is human to think of the road not taken, but every choice not made has both loss and possibility. We never know if that road had spicules and monsters, which we think would have been a bed of roses. Life has an eerie way of surprising us. Maybe today it is tough to get out of your head and stop the idealisation from clutching in its claws, but tomorrow you will understand that the thing that has always mattered is the life you chose to live.
Turning Angst into Art
The pain of unrealised lives can be alchemised into beauty—into stories, poems, or reflections that resonate with others wandering their labyrinths. There are many people like us who go through the same feelings of angst over the abandoned choices. When we realise that “what could have been” can be shaped into a meaningful experience and felt through the shared human connection, we will be able to embrace life and our choices without any regret.
Drew Barrymore said-
“I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end.”
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