This was my final essay written for English 30-2. It's short, just over 400 words. I've added a copy of Frost's The Road Not Taken for reference purposes.

What is your opinion of the idea that all people reach a point in their lives where they must face the unknown?  In your writing, you must discuss a character from literature or film that you have studied in English Language Arts 30-2.  You may choose to discuss more than one character.  You may reflect upon your own knowledge and/or experience.

            I think that facing the unknown is inevitable; the important part is how we react to it. We can choose to run back to our comfort zones and not come out, or we can boldly forge ahead, eagerly running to see what comes next. Our perspective is everything. Sometimes the unknown future holds good, and sometimes it holds bad. We won’t ever know unless we step into the unknown and find out for ourselves.

            In The Road Not Taken, the traveler is faced with the choice of going down two separate paths; he does not know what lies down either one, but chooses the second path because it ‘… wanted wear’. While the traveler regretted not being able to travel both roads, he knew he had to make a decision. As a friend of mine once quoted, ‘Life is simple. You make choices and you don’t look back.’ The traveler gives us a kind of paraphrase at the end of the poem – ‘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.’ The traveler made his decision, faced the unknown, and, when he did look back upon it, he didn’t regret his decision.

            While I think that we should make our choices and not look back, there is a time to look back and reflect and learn from past experiences, good and bad. If we can glean some good out of the bad, and learn from our mistakes, we can avoid making those same mistakes in the future. There is no use fretting about past actions; we cannot go back and redo them.

            Change is inevitable; the simple actions and interactions we make during the course of every day change and shape our personalities, for better or for worse. Some people go through life with relatively little change whatsoever, never straying outside their comfort zones, never straying from routine. For others, change is a big part of every day, sometimes a conscious decision to change, sometimes as the results of consequences to situations that they have no control over. Facing the unknown requires change. Just building up the courage to face the unknown is a change, and then stepping out into the unknown will result in even more change. Regardless of what happens in life, everyone must face the unknown. It is up to them to decide if they want to run from it or embrace it.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a  yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I culd

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

oh, I kept the first for another day!

yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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 travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.