Each Saturday, I will find ways to encourage you to reach your goals. Whether it is a video, an inspirational message, a poem, or whatever…I want to keep you focused on achieving your goals. Remember that you are the sun and you will provide the light for the people around you to believe. By embarking on this journey, you have already proven that you are a standout in the crowd, a leader. You have shown the desire and willingness to improve your life by implementing new strategies and lessons. I strongly believe that you will be the catalyst for a seismic shift in your family.
Today, our encouragement comes from Robert Frost and his indelible poem, The Road Not Taken. My adult life has not gone as planned. In fact, I can’t even explain how I ended up living in New York, nonetheless starting my business here. I am a planner and I thought that at the age of 40 my life would look much differently. I often see classmates and I thought that my life would look similar to their life at this juncture, but life has a way of unfolding mysteriously. It got me to thinking about a little poem that I learned in high school about two paths diverging. My life is a result of taking a different path.
About 12 years ago, I sat on the balcony with a friend and blurted out that I was moving. Just like that! I must have lost my mind because I had no idea where I would go or what I would do. However, I knew that prior turns that life had thrown my way meant that I was strong enough to make it through whatever winding paths that would meet me in the future. On that evening in 2002, I struck out on an unknown path, the road not taken by any of my friends. What would happen? Would I fail? Would I succeed? Would I regret it? So much uncertainty, but all that I could do was to put on my traveling shoes because I knew that it was time to hit the road. Today, I want you to release any fear that is preventing you from taken a different path. I cannot tell you how your adventure will turn out, but I can tell you from experience that it may be the best decision that you will ever make.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
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.
Have a beautiful Saturday!
Action Step: Be encouraged and do not forget to Feed The Pig!