The Road More Traveled

Robert Frost:  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.

What comes from studying oneself?  Ones neighbors?  Ones community?  Ones country?

Well, if you do it on the side of a mountain without word processing software and an internet connection, you get one heck of an education.  But it you spend a few bucks on the software and the hookup; not only do you get the education but you get a big ole megaphone and the chance to have at it.

And each step of the way, as you learn; as you observe, the one thing that is certain is that you find there is always one more step; the next issue; the next question to be delved into, researched, and analyzed.  You begin to think it is an endless process.  This learning and seeking and questioning.

So, it makes sense to sit back occasionally and ask these questions, “Just what the heck is happening?”  “What the heck is going on?”

Something happened about fifty years ago.  We were witness to it.  Literally observed it first hand; in person. 

In the fall of 1960 we joined a bunch of other young people and hung out on State St. in Ann Arbor, Michigan late one evening awaiting the arrival of a young presidential candidate who seemed to be quite a bit different from the older wise man retiring in a few months.  The candidate arrived, made a few comments, cracked a joke about being at the Harvard of the Midwest and then spoke about young people making a difference in what was to become the Peace Corps.  (See:  http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1490 )  We remember vividly when the young man took office and said simply “…ask not what you country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”  Three years later, in the same town, while running an errand, we were stopped cold in our tracks when we heard someone say, “The president has been shot.”

The following year, in May we attended graduation ceremonies and listened to the young man’s replacement speak about a great society and a war on poverty.  All being led by government based action.  Run by politicians and bureaucrats.  An old fool from Texas who had been in politics all his life cutting deals and self enriching; following a young man who spoke about doing and not expecting something to be done for you. 

Here are a couple of sentences from that May 1964 speech:

“But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings -- on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society.

The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.”

Source:  http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/great.html


Quite a contrast.

We think at or about that time, in that period of grief and turmoil and upset, we citizens may have taken the road to expectation and promise and turned away from the road of responsibility and action and discipline.  We turned away from leadership that didn’t make promises but led by demanding responsibility and discipline.  We chose politicians pandering with hopes and promises.   We didn’t recall first hand Mr. Kennedy’s closing comments that October night in 1960  but we have reread them.  Here is what he said, “…this University is not maintained by its alumni, or by the state, merely to help its graduates have an economic advantage in the life struggle.  There is certainly a greater purpose….”

We may be wrong about this series of events and this period of change.  But we go back to the simplicity of the message from one man, “Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country.”  This message of self responsibility which is all based on discipline and limits. And the message from the successor – we can make a great society.  We can fight poverty.  We can legislate a great society and outlaw being poor.  We will start in Washington and set the path from here and then take it to our communities.  This man led his nation into a swamp of war, death, entitlements and expectations.  Thankfully he retired soon thereafter, in disgrace.  However, the damage was done.

There is no road that leads to an improved person or community or country that is not built on the foundation of limits and discipline and self responsibility.   It is the road less traveled.  At a time of breakdown, we took the road that sounded good; appealed to a shocked nation; uttered by a man who did little based on discipline and limits and self control.

We have followed this most traveled road for fifty years into a swamp of expectation and entitlement and now we are desperately bogged down with no apparent means of turning back.

We simply took the wrong path.