It’s been one of those days. No sunshine, no focus, no real words. Anxiety out the ying-yang and only a few beers and some pizza to combat it. The only saving grace, if it can be considered such, is that my Detroit Lions beat the dreaded evil empire, New England.

Come to think of it, a great day, indeed!

In 1916 Robert Frost published the poem “The Road Not Taken.” It would cement his legacy and become his most recognized piece of writing. Most people who read it assume that it celebrates the story of American individualism. To support this interpretation, one needs only to look at the concluding stanza:

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.

Our culture equates taking “the one less traveled by” with fortitude, courage, and daring. These are the classic characteristics associated with the mythos of American individualism. But, as any English major can tell you, that interpretation is wrong, at least according to Frost. In 1961 he stated that the poem is “very tricky” and often misinterpreted. His real aim, or so he implied, was to comment on indecision and the search for meaning in random events.

Listen to the way Frost himself reads the poem:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear individualism in that reading. There’s no attempt to elicit an emotional response that might lead one to sally forth on a quest for wealth and dragons. In fact, the person deciding between paths seems detached, and the reasons behind their choice are obscure.

So which of these two interpretations of the poem is correct? Can they both be correct?

Poetic interpretation depends on the interpreter. It is a critical thing to keep in mind, especially as we consider the stories that swirl around us. Do we look to confirm our personal biases, or are we interested in learning? Do we want to come closer to knowing the truth, or do we need to reinforce the views we currently hold?

In short, are we open to changing our beliefs when a better story demands it?

I was talking to my son the other day. He attends a liberal arts college and is just tearing the place up. Perfect test scores. Double, and now thinking of triple, majoring. Playing classical guitar concerts before crowds of a thousand people. Embarking on laboratory research that he plans to turn into a career one day.

In this conversation, my son says, “Dad, I just love learning. I want to learn all the things!”

What was my response? I tried to get him to be practical. I talked about the tradeoffs between time and money; about the opportunity costs of staying in college; about the need to focus on the one career that will define his life.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation I started to realize that I was trying to sell him a story that I believed when I was his age. It was an old story of how you should structure your life and do the things necessary for success. A story of how you must compromise to make it in this world.

It was a story that may have been good forty years ago. Good for the right kind of person, with the right kind of beliefs. If I’m honest, I have to admit that it was a bad story for me. It led me to abandon my passions for a sense of stability and security.

It was a story that took me further from learning truth, not closer.

Why was I trying to put a damper on his excitement for learning when we had spent all those years homeschooling him to love learning? Why was I concerned that he was expanding his horizon when he had the opportunity to do so? Who was this person that was talking to him?

It was at that moment that I realized I had run face first into a rock that he had already flipped to the side. He had found a new story underneath it, one that rang out truth for him. My life had been guided by a shibboleth that did not exist in his reality.

As Frost implied in his poem, we feel the need to choose between independence and safety. It is a hard decision to make because it presents us with a false dichotomy and because we fear regret. We think the choice we make now is important, at least until the next choice comes along. We fail to recognize that choosing never ends. There are many paths that will take us through the woods to the other side. None of them are necessarily better than the other.

I realized at the end of our conversation that my son was writing a better story than the one I had at his stage in life. My story was bad, for him, and could never get him close to the truths he desired. He won’t be taking the well-traveled path, but he won’t regret it later. He will be taking a path less traveled, but perfectly suited for him.

I’ve never been more proud.