The Yellow Wood

Often, I find myself presented with a choice that doesn't seem to make much difference either way. I think perhaps the most often encountered choice of this kind is whether or not to be offended by something someone does or does not do. I have ample opportunity in my life to think ill of certain individuals. But I have found, as time goes on, that if I think of people as if they care, as if they have good intentions at heart, I feel lighter and happier in life. It doesn't change them often; chances are good that they will remain as rude and self-absorbed as ever, but to me, it makes all the difference.

"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."

~Robert Frost