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The Road Not Taken

Decent Essays

Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken”, addresses challenges every human must face. The poem describes a man in the woods who has come upon two trails. The man is faced with a decision. The poem explains that the paths look very similar, but each leads to a different outcome. The poem is a direct represents facing or two choices. Choices define people. Frost sheds light on the difficulty and curiosity that comes with making decisions and how people will allow pre-determined regret to affect the choices they make. (Secondary source) The traveler studies the paths, looking down each as far as he can. After noticing the trails are quite similar, he takes one. He states that he would save the other trail for another day, yet he knows that trails lead to more trails, and he doubts that he will ever come back. The poem closes with the man imagining himself looking back on his decision with a sigh, …show more content…

When Frost writes, “And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could” (lines 1-3). It describes a problem all people must face: making decisions without knowing exactly where those decisions will lead. Much like the man in the poem, people want to know as much as possible about both options; still, however, knowing they can only choose one. Zeelenberg concludes, “... people are motivated to make choices that shield them from threatening feedback on foregone courses of action. Thus, people are motivated to avoid post-decisional regret. This regret aversion has a profound influence on their decisions, because the possibility of regret is anticipated and subsequently taken into account when making decisions” (101). This means that people use the fear of regret to determine their choices. They want to learn everything they can about the two choices so they do not end up regretting the choice they made. They want to make the safest choice for

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