Choices

Recently I was discussing with my online friend about how the choices we take impact our lives. In an earlier post, I had talked about how destiny affects our lives.(http://wordswrite.blogspot.com/2009/03/stone-in-your-path.html). Destiny is perhaps the first thing that meets us on the path of life, and how we proceed depends on the choices we make. Destiny can provide you with an opportunity, its upto you to choose it or not ! Many times people simply blame destiny for the mess they are in. It is rightly quoted by J.K Rowling that "Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences."
Sometimes we are faced with easy and obvious choices and many times there are difficult ones. You know that each alternative has its own pros and cons and perhaps life altering repercussions. You would also know that perhaps there is no "Ctrl Z" in life ! So there is no looking back. So how do you make a wise choice? Do you put yourself first or your friends and family ? Would you be willing to risk everything you have for something you have set your heart on? Would you be willing to take on a choice knowing very well that the path ahead would be a long and arduous one? It is important to remember not to stay away from Dharma or righteousness, truth and certain basic values you have set for yourself. It is also important to be true to yourself. There might be a situation where that would hurt another, but if you are not true to yourself, whatever choice you make is pointless. The following quote from the Harry Potter series says it all-"It is our own choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (Dumbledore, vol. 2, p. 333)
Whenever I am overwhelmed with the choice I am about to take, or already taken, I fall back to my friend, the following poem by Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken

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.