Monday, December 24, 2007

Crossroads

She stands at the fork in the road. She has no road map in hand. There are no signs directing her, no co-travelers to help her along. She is all alone. And in a dilemma. Which road to choose? Both are one ways. Once a road is chosen, she cannot back track. Both look equally good or equally bad. Dimly lit. She cannot see what lies ahead.

She pauses, hesitates. Something tells her these paths are mutually exclusive. What lies on one path can't be found on the other. She would rather remain at that point than choose either of the two paths that lie ahead of her and lose all that lies on the other path, but her time is running out. She must make a decision soon.

She's scared to make that one decision which might significantly alter the course of her journey ahead. She wishes she were a child again, when parents - who always hoped for her best- would take the important decisions for her and she would obediently follow them. 'It's easy when others take your decisions for you - that way you have someone other than yourself to blame when things go wrong", she thinks, with a wry smile. But, deep down, she knows that she would rather be the one who decides, that she is grown up now, and, must decide for herself and , while basking in the joy of good decisions, must also take the brunt of the wrong ones.

She hears voices in her head, asking her to think carefully, to go on the path leading to what she really wants. She decides to introspect. To realise what she really wants, what her heart desires the most - at the moment. True, the desires are always changeable, and at a later date, she might want the very thing that she gave up. But, that is a risk she has to take. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and there would surely be moments when she would curse herself for not having gone on the other path. But it would happen no matter which path she chose. No one can peep into the future and see which of the paths lead to a happy end. But, happiness is always a state of mind, and, she decided not to look back once her decision was made and, come what may, find her happiness in her decision.

"
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both

Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference"
[Robert Frost, "The road less traveled"]

8 comments:

Sid said...

A good friend of mine always says -

We spend our days waiting for the ideal path to appear in front of us but what we forget is that, paths are made by walking not by waiting!

wander1ust said...

A very nice post about life's dilemmas. Taking a pick, a run into the blind alley is what ultimately gets one over the predicament. As they say: The really happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery when on a detour.

wander1ust said...

Addendum in case my comment above didn't make sense : sometimes, a detour may last a lifetime :)

Nissim said...

The One: "The problem is choice."
-cf. The Matrix: Reloaded.

(Tongue FIRMLY in cheek).

Bastet said...

@ Sid

Ha ha! You got me! :)

@ Ram

Lovely lines - he really happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery when on a detour. Problem arises if the detour isn't scenic, but, just a wrong road, entered when one loses the right path; a treacherous road filled with potholes... Tht is what is scary..

@ NiNa

Yups! I agrees with the 1 :)

wander1ust said...

Such a rare possibility exists, but "Achche logon ke saath hamesha achcha hota hai!"

Bastet said...

@ Ram

Clich'e! But, how to ascertain if one is achha enough?? :D PJs apart, I hope it's true :)

wander1ust said...

Well, one lives life with the hope that tomorrow's going to be a better day. Otherwise, what's the point of existence?