Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. -Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet, highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life.
Awakened Like A Bear
Have you ever woken up all frustrated and angry that you don’t have what you want? Not enough money, not enough time, not enough life, not enough happiness? Did you yell at everybody around you? Quit your job? Blame the world? Well of course you have. At one point or another we all have felt this way. If you understand what’s happening in that moment it’s actually a great thing if you understand it.
I know it doesn’t feel good and ultimately for most people, once they stop blaming the world, they retreat to the confines of their safe place and collapse. They know deep inside that it’s up to them, that nobody is coming to help….and that’s the spot where the road divides. Two paths. One looks easier, but we are wary. Something doesn’t feel right. It almost looks too easy. The other is clear but rough. It looks like a lot of work. There seems to be a path but there are hurdles and obstacles, but there is an encouraging light shining from somewhere…something we can feel more than we can see.
The Grinders
The sad part is that most jump onto the more trodden path. Only to find out that it’s slippery. What seemed like gold is hardly that, and when we begin we find there are a lot of unhappy people on that path. Many of them are high on something that seems to be repressing who they really are. You can see it in their eyes. they appear okay, but upon a deeper investigation they have an empty look…a “going through the motions” mentality.
The unfit die, the fit both live and thrive! -Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn (1876-1959), a poet associated with the American Naturalist literary movement; her autobiography was prefaced with an introduction by Robert Frost.
I remember when I was young talking to a friend of mine who had become a great tennis player! I had not seen him in a while and was amazed at how great he had become…we actually whacked the ball around in the street together…pretty funny scene playing tennis on a skinny Boston street….I could hardly catch up to his shots. He had top spin, under spin, power…the whole box of tricks! So while we were playing I said to him, “Jimmy, you’ve gotten so good at this you must just coast when you’re ahead?”…but his reply was both unexpected and unforgettable: “Nope, exactly the opposite…when I’m ahead, I hit it even harder and play like I’m way behind!”
If you’re any kind of a sports fan like I am, I’m sure you can remember your team or favorite player being ahead on points only to watch them fold like a tent and act like there was no possible way to win without becoming completely defensive. I can think of boxers running away in the last few rounds only to lose on the judges’ score cards after having crafted a masterpiece up to that point…or how about golfers imploding on the final holes!
But think about the real winners…they never seem to let up on the throttle! How about Tiger Woods…he never seems content unless he has decimated the field and even then he finds the flaws in his game or the holes in his boat! How about the image of the great Muhammad Ali standing over his opponents as they lay stretched out on the canvas with nothing left as he willed them back to life hoping for more of that victory!
