What No One Tells You About Following Your Passion

Lessons from The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

If you remember studying this Robert Frost poem in school, or simply seeing these lines against some inspirational background, then at some point you’ve definitely rolled your eyes at its facetious message of taking unconventional paths in life.

But what if these infamous lines excluded a vital part of the story — a part which completely changes their meaning? Here is Frost, describing what the diverging roads look like:

Though as for the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay,

In leaves no step had trodden black.

When I learnt this, I was completely perplexed — if both were equally untrodden, why does Robert Frost say he took the one less traveled by? And the answer came in the lines just before the infamous ones:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — (…)

And then I realised — Frost is only going to recall that he took the less traveled road.

The poem’s meaning completely changed for me, and I realised it is actually about the humanness of memory and self-delusion. When we retrospect, we tend to attribute reason and meaning to actions that were just taken on a whim.

This got me thinking — how many times have I said to myself after failing, “I knew it.” How many times have I thought, “If only,” how many times have I seen red flags but only in hindsight?

Worse, how many times have I justified my successes this way? How many times have you?

Unpredictably Irrational

We make decisions every day, a large number of which have no rhyme or reason to them. And for good reason — can you image weighing the pros and cons of every single decision? You’d barely get yourself out of bed!

It is economical for the brain to take a lot of the tiny decision of everyday life by rote, especially when the stakes are small. Surprisingly, a lot of our big decisions — like who to marry and where to live — have equally irrational roots. Even the capitalist man, thought to be the Most Rational™ to exist, makes decisions that are completely and mind bogglingly irrational. How else do you explain paying your life’s savings on a piece of rock as a symbol of your love?

Attributing reason to past actions that were based on anything but, is a way we shirk the responsibility of acting on our current situation. It places all responsibility on your past self’s action and allows you the comfort of inaction, as you are now living in a ‘consequence’ of that action.

So those who cast away the corporate chains and succeed at their passion happily look back and say, they took the path less traveled. And the rest who fail sigh and say the same.

The Traveler’s Dilemma

Faced with two diverging roads, both equally enticing and equally scary — how do you pick the right one for you? I looked to the poem for answers.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

The genius of the poem lies not in taking untrodden paths — but in facing impossible choices, having the courage to carry the weight of regret and deciding in the face of crippling uncertainty. Way will lead to way and you might not be able to return to that path you tell yourself you’re leaving for another day.

So what no one tells you about following your passion is that I can give you 10 reasons today to give up your day job, and another 10 equally convincing reasons to stick to it. We battle with these decisions every day because we know we cannot see beyond the bend in the road.

Indecisiveness and inaction will neither get you closer to your dreams, nor will they reignite interest in your current job. Where you reach is not decided by the road you take but by the consistently act of deciding itself. Ultimately, you are a lone traveler faced with two diverging roads — and sorry, you cannot travel both. What matters, though, is that you travel anyway.