The Road Not Taken 2

Very often, with the passing of age, we look back on our lives and wonder how life would be like if we had made different choices, taken a different path. Yet how conscious/deliberate are these decisions and did we really have the ability to exercise choice to begin with? The nature-nurture dialectic - perhaps we were 'made' to be a certain way, be a type of person: artistic, sporty, scientific, literary. Perhaps our surroundings have nurtured, shaped and acculturated us to be a 'kind' of person - phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, pragmatic.

Are there choices still despite this constraint of nature and nurture? I would like to believe so. I guess it's a paradox and contradiction nonetheless. I would like to believe that we shape our own lives and destiny - hence my relentless willpower and grit which have been taken note of by many. Yet I still comprehend and even accept the plausibility of the hand of Fate exercising it's will, call it whatever you 'will' (no pun intended): Divine providence, the Grecian's Fate, predestination, Karma etc.

Frost's poem is often read as an assertion of the will and of individualism, more importantly, of consciously journeying a path others would not tread. I think I've pretty much done that for so many years of my existence. I've always had to assert self-belief and actualise it to succeed simply because I've always chosen differently from everyone else, always thought differently and perceived differently from the 'norm'. And so I've learnt to accept my own difference as strength instead of weakness. Like issues in X-men (what a lame comparison for a literary scholar! Ha!). difference is always feared. But one learns to live with it ... one learns to turn weakness into strength.

Would I have done things differently, i.e. follow the norm? I'm not sure. I think I would have but I may not have had that choice after all. I would have done many things that I like doing now and perhaps those are some of the things that I look back with traces of regret. I certainly would not have wanted to meet some people in my life; I certainly would not have gone to that godforsaken college and if so the resultant chain of events (cause-effect!) would have been so different. I probably would not be here now. I also certainly would have taken other interests more seriously and started earlier, training hard. What a childhood!

Seeking resolution:
I guess I have many things, not forgetting the successes that have come about because of the causality that proceeded from the choices (or lack thereof) that I've made. There is little to complain. There is only the need for the acceptance that one man cannot possibly excel in all things and success/triumph comes in thriving in what one is truly passionate about.