It's called life...

It can happen if you're ready or not.
It can be over if you're ready or not.

Lately, I've been thinking hard about my path in life, realizing that I'm at a crossroads. It's not an "X". There are more than four options with which to procede. It's not an asterisk either "*". These options are limitless and that's what gives me such a startling pause.

Who am I? Where am I going?

Robert Frost would tell me to take The Road Less Travelled and that should make all the difference. Frost came to a fork in the road and had two pretty clear choices to weigh. He summed it all up in some potent lines of poetry and off he went.


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 back.
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.


Reading the rest of Frost's works one easily realizes that the author chose correctly and his lesson is one that has stuck with me since I first read this poem as a child. I don't recall what age. It always reminded me of my grandfather in it's simplicity of speech. So much more is understood in what is not said than by that which is. My grandfather was a quiet man, a writer who didn't often speak but when he did, most people he knew were smart enough to listen and were better off for it. More on Phillips J. Peck on another day. Today is for Andrew Phillips Peck and his crossroads.

I hope to explore one of the lines converging here today, so that I may choose once and for all the path of my future, my life, my self. Will you join me?

I'm not going forward today. I'm not ready. I'm standing in the woods on this sweltering Hoosier summer afternoon and I've prepared badly for the uncertain trails ahead. I'm woefully unready for the heat, the bugs, the holes along the path. I'm comfortable in my swivel chair, staring into my monitor. But the chair will do naught but spin in a circle. I'm at a junction of many thoroughfares and it would be imprudent to sit still. No, I've got to pick a direction and move.

My inner power source (my God, my Higher Power, Jesus, Bhudda, Allah, You know the guy.) has guided me here for a reason. I told him too. I told him that today was the start of something new and different for me. July 10, (Andre Dawson's Birthday btw) was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. I was right. So I asked for guidence. In my IPS's typical cynical fashion, I was sent to this intersection. I can hear Him asking me now.

So now what, smart guy? Where are you going now?

I can't just stand here. This is intersection is like any other you've seen. There are objects traveling through it at breakneck speed. I best watch myself or lose a limb. Or worse. If I respect my IPS and by association, myself, I'd better get moving. Will you come with me?

Which road will I take? I know you'd like to ask. I'm going to take one less traveled all right. It's been trampled on by only myself. I'm going backward in time. I want to know what I missed while I was so busy living my life. I want to go back to another moment at a crossroads in life, when I set out on a cold and lonely trek forward, only to end up here today. I want to see what details I might have failed to notice, dump out my memory bank and recover missing pieces. When we look at them together, we might find meaning and clues that could help me pick the road forward. We could take this trip together. And that could make all the difference.

It's called Life...
It can happen if you're ready or not
So be ready on the spot, plan with a plot.