Roads not taken
Photo by Jens Lelie.
In “What If You Could Do It All Over?”, Joshua Rothman considers chance, choice and roads not taken. The essay is a winding tour across film, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and beyond—all in search of answers for those who can’t help asking what-if.
He begins by stating a paradox:
Even as we regret who we haven’t become, we value who we are. We seem to find meaning in what’s never happened. Our self-portraits use a lot of negative space.
Ultimately, Rothman wants to understand whether there is room inside the self for these alternate and parallel realities, or at least the hope of them.
In the sense that our unled lives have been imagined by us, and are part of us, they are real; to know what someone isn’t—what she might have been, what she’s dreamed of being—this is to know someone intimately.
This interests me, first of all, because I’m a seeker. I have repeatedly chosen an independent path over a secure, institutionally-backed career—choices that have both opened doors and foreclosed opportunities. Sometimes I relish the benefits; other days I curse the limitations. Pros and cons, people, pros and cons.
However, it’s not only personal for me. It’s professional. The road not taken comes up often in coaching. It is not unusual to hear what clients call “fantasies” or “pipe dreams,” or just a yearning for a wholly different work life. My job as coach is to hold space for those hopes (and, sometimes, regrets) and to make it safe for my clients to engage with them. From there, my work is to help my clients access and follow their own wisdom—whether that means making peace with their current path or exploring a change.
So, I love Rothman’s conclusion—a rich understanding that a whole person consists of not only what is real, but also what is possible.
When we first meet people, we know them as they are, but, with time, we perceive the auras of possibility that surround them.
Perhaps also, with time, we will embrace a wide kind of wholeness—complete with roads not taken, paths abandoned, and milestones unreached. These too are part of our stories. 🖤
P.S. This essay is one of those readings that spin you out—to the Talking Heads, to Jean-Paul Sartre, to Virgina Woolf, to Hollywood, to to to... I’ve compiled a list for you below. (My personal favorite was Carl Dennis’s poem, “The God Who Loves You.”)
🌀REFERENCES🌀
TV and Film:
Music and Poetry:
”The God Who Loves You,” Carl Dennis
Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads
“The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost
“Veracruz,” George Stanley (scroll down for poem)
Fiction:
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Iliad, Homer
The Jolly Corner, Henry James (currently free on Kindle!)
The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Nonfiction
Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre
”Hillary Mantel’s Imagination,” Larissa MacFarquhar
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, Kieran Setiya
Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life, Adam Phillips
On Not Being Someone Else: Tales of Our Unled Lives, Andrew Miller
Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor
Every other Friday, I share 5 things to consider and a treasure chest of links in my Helping Friendly Newsletter. Subscribe here (it’s free).