“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost
One thing about life is that you will continuously make decisions that will affect the trajectory of your path. Whether it’s something simple as contemplating going to the grocery store, or something more life-changing as debating between colleges, each choice ultimately creates two roads—one of which you’ll never end up witnessing. Every so often, I tend to think about how different my life would have been if I had made one slight alteration. What if I had sent that text? What if I had chosen that college? What if I never applied for that job? How drastically different would my current circumstances be?
It is human nature that we all dwell on the “what-ifs” and the “could have beens.” There’s a constant fascination to explore the thousands of alternate realities, deciphering each one and the imaginary version of me that lives inside it. However, at times, it tends to make me question if I made the right choice, causing a lingering doubt about each potential path and the possibilities that could have come along with it. This doubt doesn’t fully stem from regret, but rather the curiosity of figuring out what the unknown could’ve entailed. Each day is filled with an array of choices, both big and small, that play a role in the outcomes of how the rest of our days, weeks, months, and even years can go. Due to this, I have become consciously aware of how I make my decisions, trying to predict what each path could potentially offer me.
For instance, this past summer I was conflicted between two internship opportunities for the following year—both of which were in my desired fields of interest. Through constant back and forth of debating which offer would be best suited for me, I tried to picture how my life would play out in both scenarios. One company could have the ability to provide me with a range of excellent opportunities but another could bring me more joy and less amounts of stress. However, regardless of how many predictions one can make, I cannot have the best of both worlds. At the end of the day, I knew that I could only experience one of the two options given to me.
Throughout the remainder of my life, it will always come down to one singular choice. Looking back at all of the decisions I have made, each choice has paved the path to where I am and who I have become as a person. Of course, I still endlessly wish to see how different things would be if other choices were made, but ultimately it demonstrates the complexity and beauty of the human journey and what it entails. By being torn between multiple paths, I have learned that regardless of the outcome, the path I chose was the one for me. No matter how often the “what-ifs” creep up, I remain grounded that each choice, right or wrong, has given me a mosaic of experiences that continue to add to the story of my existence.