We will leave you with Robert Frost's “The Road Not Taken” (1915):

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.

We join the many who revere this poem's implications for career journeys and career choices. It seems to bolster our sense of individual choice and self‐determination. Taking “the one less traveled by” is a hard decision that, as this traveler says, “has made all of the difference.” This sure sounds like an encouragement to go your own way, don't follow the trodden path, be autonomous and entrepreneurial. What a poetic validation of that courageous career choice that makes all of the difference!

And yet there is another reading! We will not pretend to know what Frost had in mind. Still, in the words themselves there is the peril and ambivalence we feel about career choices. We all know the unlikelihood we will “ever come back.” Perhaps this is why Frost's traveler will tell “with a sigh” about the choice. Does a career traveler ever tell us of a great successful decision she or he made “with a sigh”? Is it possible that Frost's traveler is hinting that “all the difference” was not all good? Or even implying that taking the road not taken was a mistake? Tough fork‐in‐the‐road career decisions can certainly yield mistakes for which we sigh and later rationalize, “No regrets, it is what it is… .”

You cannot go back in time and redo a career decision. As all career decisions are consequential, you might need a better reason to follow the less trodden path than the perilous allure that it is simply less trodden.

As a metaphorical career seeker, Frost's traveler would also be unusual in that he or she was alone in the fateful choice of path. Careers are webs of relationships. As our five career anchors stories emphasize, the choices our seekers made were deeply relational, cast by the influences of other people, not just the leanings of the career seeker alone. Does it now make sense why we started (Chapter Two) with relationship mapping? It would be a very strange world indeed if we could make career decisions in a vacuum, without the compelling influences of personal and professional connections. In his infinite wisdom, Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) reminds us to not forget the “many strange birds” we will encounter as we go. We need “strange birds” to attract us and to repel us in making work and life decisions. Realistically we will not find the untaken career road without the relationships that got us to the two diverging paths in the first place.

If you go through career assessments, perhaps including career anchors and growth intentions, you may find it much easier to handle that tricky fork in the road such that the choice you make is because it aligns affirmatively with your relationships, past and present, and your intentions for future growth. This could make all the difference in a positive way—you can take the path others have not taken because it all lines up for you and those around you in ways that it may not have for others. In the end, the correct decision finds the best path, whether or not it is the other path.

It never hurts to ask for help and to tap into the tools and resources that provide insights to help you reach moments of clarity. You can be confident of career choices, with no regretful “sighs,” when you have sought the right information to become mindful, reflective, holistic, and honest with yourself in all of your career moments of truth.