Choices can be placed into one of two categories: black and white ones and gray ones. Black and white ones aren’t necessarily easy to make even if the right choice is obvious; The Little Mermaid is an example. Ariel knows what is right, but she chooses what is wrong. She disobeys her father and finds herself facing the consequences. Even though everything comes aright in the end, she doesn’t know that it will in the midst of the disobedience and resulting pain. She only knows that she is losing her prince, her father, her friends, and very possibly herself.
Real life rarely is such a tidy thing. The choices to be made more often reside in the gray. One choice is no better than another. It’s not more right or beneficial or attractive. They have equal weight, and the scale refuses to indicate which one is the better course.
The consequences are equally impossible to weigh. The person thinking through them sees no way to make a distinction. All the choices have consequences, and none of them are bad, immoral, or hurtful. The only certainty is the regret found in not making a decision. Making no choice may feel safer and seem wiser, but it’s neither wise nor safe. It’s a cutting off of opportunity. Playing it safe is what results in “missing out,” not the act of making an actual decision.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” illustrates the grayness of life. The speaker can make no differentiation between the two roads. He can only see to a certain point along both of them and has to wrestle with which one to choose. He doesn’t allow the fear of missing out on what one of those roads offers prevent him from making a choice; he recognizes that not choosing a road means missing out on what both offer. Thus, he chooses one, and it is that choice that “makes all the difference.”
Image: Jonathan Kos-Read (Creative Commons)
Ah yes. Gray. Possibly my least favorite color in the world. I am so easily distracted by those bright flashy reds and purples and yellows. So crisp! So clear!
But there’s a reason Frost’s poem continues to haunt us years after we read it in high school English class. He’s speaking to truth. Grown-ups know that accepting the reality of loss and regret is an integral part of success. We cannot be all things to all people nor can we be a master of all trades. But we can be the best of what we consciously choose to do.
And yes, that does make all the difference.
Thank you for writing the very post I needed to read today!
magriebler Gray isn’t one of my favorite colors, either.
I love what you say about loss and regret and how we have to be the best of what we consciously choose to do. That does make all the difference. I needed those words today.