You know that poem by Robert Frost? The one about the “road less travelled”? Do you know what it’s called?

It’s not called “the road less travelled”…and for good reason.

It seems like everyone loves that poem and it’s because everyone can relate to it. Everyone dreams of wanting to be a pioneer. Everyone wants to do something that’s never been done before. Everyone wants to be first and to blaze a new path.

The problem is everyone doesn’t read so carefully.

The poem alludes to “the road less travelled” but it’s actually called “The Road Not Taken” because that’s what it’s about. In one sentence - It’s about a person who reaches two roads and although he wishes he could take both, knows he can only take one. Here’s a startling fact for you - he doesn’t even choose the road less travelled.

Let’s take a look at the poem:

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;

Like I said, a guy reached two roads and couldn’t travel both. Now check out these lines:

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,

“Worn them really about the same.” There was no “less travelled” road. They were the same. Go figure.

Now read these next lines:

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.

37Signals likes to claim that decisions are temporary (“Decisions are temporary so make the call and move on”), a helpful little axiom to push through analysis paralysis, but as Frost notes here, we rarely get to try the other path, especially the further along we get.

Now here’s where our friend in the poem becomes a liar.

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.
(Source of poem text: http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html)

The guy tells people what they like to hear, which is that he boldly took the road less travelled. He tells it with a sigh though because he knows he’s lying.

Why the poetry lesson? Because we should really give Robert Frost far more credit than we do and take inspiration from his insight. The challenge of the “road not taken” is far bigger than that of “the road less travelled.”

This is especially true for entrepreneurs. We’ve already demonstrated we are willing to take roads less travelled, but making decisions is the hardest thing we do. So many decisions and so little information!

For instance with Pocket Tales, we had to decide whether we are a reading game, a recommendation engine, or a general platform for children’s ebooks. All of those sound like great options, and potentially big, very viable businesses. How do I choose? Market research? Ha. We all know the limitations (and expense) of market research for a new idea.

I love this poem because Frost shows us that we’re not the only ones who feel this way, and although we all want to be different and original, I don’t know a single person who doesn’t find comfort in knowing sometimes he’s like everyone else. He’s just trying to take the road less travelled and worrying about the road not taken.

And in that there’s a greater irony than I’m capable of explaining.