Everyone is a traveler, choosing the roads to follow on the map of their continuous journey, life. There is never a straight path that leaves one with but a sole direction in which to head. Some decisions to these choices are clear while others are sometimes more difficult to make. The poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a first person narrative tale of a moment in the speaker's life. The poem is in the past tense; therefore, the reader knows that the narrator is reflecting on a past experience. Frost can be considered the speaker in the poem. Frost is faced between the choices of a moment, walking down a rural road and encounters a point on his travel that diverges into two separate similar paths. It raises the evident question of whether it is better to choose a road in which many travel, or to choose the road less traveled and explore it for yourself. Each reader comes away with a slightly different meaning from the poem; their human condition will probably dictate the context in which they will interpret the poem. Frost uses symbolism to demonstrate that everyone is a traveler who chooses the road to follow on his or her journey in life. While the speaker chooses which path he ought to take in the woods in "The Road Not Taken", he also demonstrates that the decision, whether made on the spur of the moment or thought long and hard about, will change the speaker's life in a way that can not be predicted. There is a strong sense of regret before the choice is even made and it lies in the knowledge that in one lifetime, it is impossible to travel down every path.
             It is possible to read this poem as a statement of some self-pity on the poet's part, a feeling, perhaps, that he has been cheated and misunderstood because he took an unpopular path. The poem starts with: "two roads diverge in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler, long I stood/And looked down ...