‘What are you going to do after university?’ They ask.
I curb my lip, twist by brow and shrug.
‘Who knows?’
This is usually followed by some witty remark about the frivolousness of my existence after university. I am not sure whether my response is for them to rank me together with the other post-education “Know-nothings” or actual interest in me, so that I can say I have no idea before anyone else does. Either way, the future, right now, seems so uncertain.
After years of schedules, of great plans and next-steps, life after university offers a labyrinth of choices, each with unknown destinations. The possibilities are seemingly endless and somewhat daunting. Fully-fledged adulthood is approaching and there is no roadmap, just twists and turns punctuated by unpredictability.
Some people might be assured of the “what next.” They’ve got their CV in hand and have secured another stepping stone towards their dream job, house or/and lifestyle. I, certainly, am not. Questions of “what next” swirl round my head like a carousel of doubt and anxiety. The world of opportunities appears as a swerving forest, prickly and menacing.
I like to think that others share my bamboozlement: What will I do? What will I become? What does life have in store for me? I’m surprised I have time for any university work when I’m constantly vexed by all these puzzling questions.
There is poem by Robert Frost called ‘The Road Not Taken.’ It makes me think of the situation, we, if anyone is out there and shares my predicament, face as one strives out of lectures halls and into the winding world of adult-dom.
In the poem, there is a wood and two roads. The subject looks upon two diverging paths contemplating which one she/he will travel down. I feel like I am standing in this wood, surrounded by a concave of trees and invisible beasts. I am inspecting multiple paths, frazzled and in a state of unknown.
The climax of Frost’s poem is the subject takes ‘the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.’ Many have interpreted this as cry for the individual to break from conformity and dare to be different. That rather than doing what is easy, we must do what is right and venture down a more treacherous avenue. This is a handsome message, as it takes bravery and guts to go into unchartered territory. However, I do not believe this is the guiding principle of the poem.
Frost, in an earlier part, talks about how both roads are worn ‘really about the same.’ When the subject stands on the precipice that sunny morning, each road lay there equally in its greatness and uncertainty. Both the road more-taken and the road-less taken provide opportunity; it simply boils down to which one you decided to embark upon.
The question therefore is: Do you take road A or road B? And if you take road A then you cannot take road B, and vice versa? In life we have to make choices, going down paths and leaving some behind. Maybe, the real point of the poem is that you shouldn’t be scared of the roads you take and resentful of the ones you cannot.
Nobody has it all figured out, just as nobody really knows what’s at the end of each path (despite all the predictions conjured up.) We, just have to “take the leap” and know that this moment will always be remembered with a ‘sigh, because this was the moment when the leap was taken and the journey began.’ We are human and whatever path treaded will be littered with mistakes of one’s own making.
At the moment, I don’t really know what the paths are; they are nameless and awaiting to be stumbled across. But right now, I want to embrace, to put my pen-to-paper (or more literally, my hands to the keyboard) this state of the unknown. I want to capture my current pondering of what life may, or may not have in store, because soon it will be too late and it will have already taken hold. I want to look around at the wood and realise that this is a wonderful, fleeting place. So, here’s to Mr. Frost, here’s to you and here’s to me and the many diverging paths.
Edited by Angelica Beier
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