The Road Less Traveled....

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.

The road less traveled by is a poem that clearly romanticises choosing your own unique life style and being unique. In our culture we teach children from a very young age that they are unique, that there is nobody like them. They have individual finger prints that nobody else has, and their personalities are just as unique. As they grow older we desperately try to categorize them by generalizing them into groups of stereotypical behaviors. Our society can not answer questions to why children are acting in certain ways without using generalizations. Our culture does not stop to think that the reasons the child is acting how they do is because of their own individual traits and experiences. Our culture thus damages individuality because if everyone was unique then our culture would not function as effectively as it needs to be accepted. Because our culture does not give space for individuality, we romanticize it so that we are able to feel the uniqueness without restrictions.