I hate to say it, but as your brother and friend, I must tell you that you are wrong about this. You are wrong about the pandemic, you are wrong about the election, you are wrong about how you lead the men around you. How do I know this? First, read this poem and we’ll get into the gory details afterward…
The Road Not Taken
-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.
There’s a decent chance you know that one or at least the final three lines: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–/I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference.” Wow, how inspirational, how triumphant—slap that on a poster, am I right? No, sorry, wrong! SMH, you read it all wrong if you believe the last three lines. In fact, Frost thinks one is less traveled at first glance, but then realizes he’s wrong about that and admits, “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.”
Frost tries to tell himself that he can go back and walk the other at some future point, but his gut realizes that is impossible as time marches on—we simply can’t go back and get a do-over. So it is with a sigh that he says he will be “telling this” at some future point and when he tells the story of his past he will say he took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference while the reality is far more murky.
And I’m afraid we all come to these divergent paths in life and amble on down the one that looks right, but quickly we develop doubts. Our lives are a string of liminal moments defined by both the roads we take and the reasons we choose to tell others for the taking of them. This year, perhaps unlike any prior, we are reminded at each sign post of just how divergent each path is and we are told quickly and emphatically by those who claim to be just ahead how certain they are in their way. But remember, what is told is not always what is truth.
And so, let me be the first to tell you—you are wrong about this pandemic. As the new year began and we set about accomplishing our lofty resolutions for the cool sounding “2020”, we heard about a strange thing happening in China and whatever our first thought was, I can assure you we were all wrong about it. As the disease made its way to our shores and the data models started screaming death and despair, we all began to diverge on the issue and many were wrong. We locked down and diverged on that, then on masks and on hospital capacities, jobs, restaurant openings, vitamin D, hydro-chlora-somethings, school re-openings and on and on.
More sign posts, more tellings of tales, more certainty and doubt. And you were wrong, and they were wrong, and I was wrong. In fact, I promise you that in a decade or two from now our children or grandchildren will be sitting in a college course reading new findings on the 2020 pandemic that will challenge the groundbreaking findings of the year prior, or 5 years prior. One thing we can be sure of: what we know as a matter of fact right now will look almost comical to those with the benefit of hindsight.
Ah, but the election! Many of us will shout without hesitation that, “he is a corrupt liar and is undermining the very foundation of our democratic process!” I am sure many of you agree with that statement, you just don’t all agree on who the “he” is. With every social media post we make, every link or headline we share, we are telling those around us exactly what path we are on and the supposed reason for it. We declare ourselves to be on the path to the right or to the left. And although we are regularly given a new set of choices at each controversy, each new revelation and each decision made by the candidates we often find ourselves more certain in the telling than of the actual choosing. All the while knowing, “how way leads on to way.”
As leaders of men, the challenge is compounded. First, we must move confidently, or others will not follow. Some will question our explanations for the direction or perhaps even worse: others may never question it, not once. We will head off down a road and the doubt will grow within us, and as we look back for a glimpse at the last fork, longing for a second chance, we will instead see a line of followers staring at their feet. Marching along with us in lock-step down a road that will, at times inevitably be wrong. We lead our brothers astray and have nobody to pin the blame on but ourselves.
So what do we do with the knowledge that we are most assuredly wrong? The easy answer is to fall back and line up behind someone else instead. Put all your faith in a talking head on TV, a Presidential candidate or political party, a public health expert with a novel take on a novel disease or the loudest talker in the darkness and stare at your feet down every blind curve. So much comfort in ignorance. Like snuggling a warm blanket on a cold autumn morning while your brothers push their bodies through pain and blow on their stinging fingers. Print that on a poster and hang it on your wall, I dare you! “I took no paths of my own accord, and that has made all the difference.” Of that you can be sure. That will be the difference between you and a man of purpose.
Then what should a real man do if he is unwilling to give up free will in exchange for easy comforts? Fear not, the answer is actually quite simple: know where you are ultimately trying to go.
State what you believe—in your own words. Ten years from now, when you are telling of the many sign posts past and roads not taken, where are you and who are you telling? If we blindly make all rights or all lefts at every turn, do we not end up walking in circles? As you make your way down an unknown path and you feel the sinking feeling of doubt, stop dreaming of a do-over and instead remind yourself that a new choice will present itself soon. With your eyes fixed on a clear destination, being wrong from time to time does not prevent you from a course correction.
As leaders, we can and should admit to mistakes as long as we reassure those we lead that we have not lost sight of the ultimate destination.
You were wrong about the pandemic, so was I. You are wrong about the election, so am I. We are wrong in how we lead our brothers. But there is hope in never losing sight of our promised land. That together we move forward in lifting up those around us and making each other stronger for choosing the path out of bed and into the gloom. Ages and ages hence, may you be in the place you desire when proudly recounting the many turns that got you there.
Always with love,
-Vila