Sometimes, it’s not about the Road!

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference”

All of us at some point of time or another in our lives come to a point where we stand at crossroads. Roads lie in front of us, and we have to chose one of them. Unlike the poet, Robert Frost, who chose the one less travelled by, most of us chose the one that is well travelled, and that, as they say, makes all the difference.

But it is not always about the road. Sometimes, it does not matter what road you take.

What does matter, however, is how you choose to walk the road. Just because many people have walked down the road before you, or are walking down the same road with you, does not mean that all of them will end at the same place, at the same time.

You can take the same road as others, but run and reach the destination faster than anyone else. Then, if you wish, you can go  even further. Or, you can choose to hop and skip and enjoy your journey as you walk, without worrying about the destination. Or, you can walk very slowly taking in everything that makes the road what it is – things that people before you missed because they were too busy walking.

It is quite romantic to believe in the idea of the road less travelled. It is also quite easy to use the idea as an excuse for mediocrity – “I did what everyone else did, so why am I surprised now that I have ended up where everyone else has.”

But, it does no have to be like that. In fact, it should not be like that.

To make the point even clearer, let us have a look at Google. Before it was anything else, Google was a search engine. By the time Google arrived on the scene, there were at least twelve other search engines in existence. By Internet standards, therefore, Google did not choose a road less travelled. It just did what it did with greater drive and ambition than others, and that, in turn, pushed it to a place where it became one of the most well known brands in the world.

Also, in time, just by travelling on the road that was well travelled, Google reached a point where the only road that lay before it was the road less travelled. You can do a Google too, if  instead of worrying about the road you have taken, you focus on your walk. Wouldn’t you agree?