Choosing the Road Not Taken—the Artist’s Road

You might be wondering about the picture above. Why have I given you a picture of me trying to climb over the prohibitive sign on a lush green cliff in Maui? Here’s why: it serves as a visual demonstration of the fact that I’ve always taken the road less traveled even when it looked to everyone else that it would be “too dangerous.” I had lots of people tell me to stay on the path. But did I? No. And boy am I glad that I didn’t.

I am sitting here writing this at 2:21am. Here’s why: Last night I had rehearsal from 9pm-11pm. By the time I got back home and got showered it was after 1am. I woke up at 7:30am the next morning to meet with a client to discuss an upcoming writing project at 9am and then went straight to teach from 12:15pm to 5:30pm. When I got home, I passed out at 7:30pm and slept until 9:30pm at which point I woke up, baked some cookies and completed an article job so that I’d remain on schedule. The schedule we artist’s hold…. Fun stuff.

So here I am typing away, emailing clients, playing music, pulling cookies out of the oven, and pouring glasses of milk while the rest of my apartment building slumbers. Anyway, I thought this quiet hour would be a great time to recount the chance I had to express my feelings about “the road less traveled” with a group of kids today in a way I did not expect.

As I may have mentioned before, I’m not really the teacher-type unless we’re talking dance. With writing jobs on my plate and the constant energy involved in instructing multiple dance classes each week, I tend to avoid accepting work in other categories. One practical reason is because I just don’t have time—the precious hours I spend on these other jobs is time I am not spending on a writing project with a fast-approaching deadline or getting the proper rest in order to have enough energy to give my next group of students a profitable class.

However, sometimes I do get suckered into agreeing to these “extras.”

During the school year, I teach a stretch and strength/intro to dance type class once a week at an art school that holds an after-school program. However, due to the increased need for kids’ activities during the summer, I’ve been teaching there Monday through Friday since June. I arrive, walk the students over to the nearby park where there’s a large space where we can hold dance class, teach for an hour, monitor them while they play on the playground for another 20-25 minutes and then walk them back to the school. Honestly, this amount of time is often the max I can stand. The classes are many times a challenge because there’s a range of ages to balance and the kids aren’t in my class because they necessarily want to dance—it’s just a part of the summer program which results in mixed levels of interest.

Needless to say, I’m usually ready to go home when my time of teaching and TA-ing is up each day. For this reason, I was a little less than thrilled when my boss requested that I stay late on a Friday to TA during the afternoon art and language classes since no other teacher was available to do it. I agreed, reluctantly, only accepting the request because my boss at this school is one of the most agreeable supervisors I’ve ever encountered and I didn’t want to leave her in a jam.

I had prepared my mind to take on the additional three and a half hours after my class that was sure to be filled with sticky hands, repeated answers to questions, “stop that,” and “quiet down” when something I wasn’t expecting came about. The teacher I was supposed to TA for asked me to teach the English class while he taught Chinese.

I always plan my classes ahead of time so the idea of being to asked to teach a lesson I didn’t have sufficient time to prepare for is not what I call a good time. Of course, it wasn’t as if I could say no to the request. I mean, there was no one else there to teach the class!

I asked the teacher what he had in mind and he gave me a quick rundown.

Included in the stack of materials he provided me with were three different poems. He suggested I put the kids in groups, have them read the poem they were given, and then act out a skit illustrating its meaning.

I figured that was easy enough.

The first two poems were both Shel Silverstein, ones I hadn’t read in years. Reading them was a goofy walk down memory lane and the kids enjoyed them. The third poem I had also heard before quite a while back. It was the classic work by Robert Frost entitled “The Road Not Taken.” You probably know the poem and if you do, you probably resonate with it at least a little as an artist. Here were the lines that stuck with me the most on that afternoon in a class I didn’t want to teach:

“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.”

As I listened to one of the children read it out loud to the rest of us, I realized something: It spoke to me in a new way now. At this stage of my life I had actually taken the writer’s advice, something I hadn’t yet experienced the first time I’d read it in school.

To the kids, the whole idea of the poem was pretty abstract so I asked them if they could guess what the poem meant.

They said no.

I’m no Literature Professor, but I decided to see if they’d pay attention while I gave them my own translation.

“We are really lucky to be able to choose what we want to do with our lives,” I said. “Like what sports we want to play and what job we want to have. That means that if there is something you like you have the chance to go after it and maybe even make it your career. I love dancing and writing, so that is the path I took and now I get to do those things all the time. You can too. You’re free to go your own way.”

Surprisingly enough, the kids listened with rapt attention to my little spiel. One of the older girls, probably 13 years-old at the most, asked, “Have you written a book?”

I said yes, I have written books that can be found on Amazon. Her eyes grew wide as she asked, “What are they called?”

I looked around and was shocked to find all of the kids with ‘marshmallows in’ for the first time all day as they listened.

A bit later the same girl who had shown the most interest in my writing told me that she loves to write too.

“Maybe you’ll be a writer one day, then,” I said, thinking back on how she could be found reading during every break throughout the day. She was just like me when I was her age. She looked pleased with my words and went back to her book.

I wondered if my words would resonate with any of the kids for any length of time. Perhaps one day they would remember that someone had told them it was possible to do the things they are passionate about—that there is no need to push it to the wayside.

Whether it would stick or not, the class had turned into something I never expected—it had presented me with the chance to share my whole philosophy on following your dreams and making a living doing what you love at a level that the next generation would understand.

The poem caused me to ask this question: How many artists out there have looked down the uncertain path of the creative life, paused to consider, and then turned away to take the one “trodden by many”?

9 of My Favorite “Artist” Movie Where the Heroes Never Gave Up

Perhaps hearing someone say that taking the road less traveled is an option would have been all it would have taken for them to be courageous enough to pursue the unknown. If that was the case, I felt it was my duty to be that person to these kids—whether it planted a seed or not.

I’d discovered that it was largely up to me to shape the type of life I wanted to live. Check out this fantastic article by Prakhar Verma on what Designing Your Life For True Freedom means.

What does this “Road Not Taken” look like for you specifically in your artistic endeavors? Have you taken the road less traveled? I want to hear!

Care for a little more inspiration? Click here to receive my FREE Ebook “Six Steps to Making Your Writing Passion Your Paycheck.”