The Road Not Taken

In less than 2 weeks I will be in Tijuana, Mexico. I cannot wait! It will be my first trip to Mexico (yay passport stamps!) and it is also an opportunity for me to do some work in the community of Tijuana. Now, don't you worry, we won't actually be in Tijuana proper or within reach of the vicious drug lords. I promise I'll come back in one piece. :)

Nevertheless, we will be doing work to rebuild the shattered community and provide homes and opportunities for its inhabitants. These are the kinds of things I love to do. If I could go on work trips for the rest of my life, I would. It's everything I love about being a human being. I have a soul that cries out to help those less fortunate than me and I have opportunities to reach out and make a difference. What an incredible feeling!

While I'm there I won't have access to the internet, my phone, or the world back home. I'll be calling the parentals to tell them I made it there safely, but that's about it. I think that this week of no contact will be good for me. It'll be a chance to cleanse my mind from the computerized world that I live in. It will give me an opportunity to remember who I am and what I am doing, without the entire world weighing in on it. I'm looking forward to a bit of 'silence' and the opportunity to actually finish the 14 books I have started reading. I am also looking forward to spending time with some incredible people and learning more about them. (Don't worry, I'll bring some tequila back, too.)

I am lucky to have so many opportunities placed in my life's path. I just need to take more chances and go for it more often than taking the safe road and not venturing outside the box. One of my favorite poems is by Robert Frost, called "The Road Not Taken." The text is beautifully constructed, but the lesson is simple: take the road less traveled and your life will be enriched by the experiences you have as opposed to standardized like others' lives.

Here is the poem for your reading pleasure:

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.

I hope that you all take something from that poem. I also hope that you take the opportunity to take the road less traveled and make a difference in the lives of others.