The Unintended Path - Discovered

 Marcus Alden Meredith

February 7, 2024

The “Unintended Path” - Discovered

Or How Robert Frost Was Right

Many people are familiar with the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken.” Some may even love it, quote it, and feel they should live it. But in a very real, demonstrative sense we all live it. The Stoics, as a parallel, talk often about the Obstacle to Action ( “The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Meditations 5.20), that resistance becomes the impetus for what comes next in life. Even the Zen Buddhists have stories about staying focused on the path in front of you, again talking about how the obstacle is the way. It is when the unexpected obstacle shows up that new opportunities we were not even aware of present themselves and we can either welcome them or shatter and crumble in front of them like porcelain dolls. Such a life changing event happened to me…”and that has made all the difference .”

In a autobiographical vane, let me tell you how I experienced this very “unexpected path”, this “impediment to action” and how its results I would gladly repeat, never looking back except to teach others. I was not always a writer. I by training am a physical scientist specializing in aspects of physics (astrophysics with emphases on optics and acoustics) and chemistry (food & flavor chemistry). I almost took a job working for Kelloggs but went into public school teaching instead (with hindsight, this was a most fortuitous road for the future even though the pay was crap, the work was hard to the point of mind numbing, and my status as an educator was constantly questioned by society as a whole). I taught at the same school for 33 years, enjoyed most of my time, had good and bad colleagues, learned a great deal about how lucky I was NOT to be a parent, and only later in my career learned about how much I had influenced the world through my students and what they would become in the future. Then, as I was getting more and more tired with each school year and thinking about another career, “The Incident” happened. My district and I were at loggerheads and I had a choice to make: fight, quit, or…. retire. What next?

Here comes the point in time when good friends are the greatest bounty of a good life and I found myself putting pen to paper with a buddy of mine who was also a teacher. I’m glad he is a math teacher because with his help I realized I could retire (later discussions with agents of the retirement system put the final nail in the coffin for this decision and so retirement became a fait accompli). It was much earlier, in my mind, than I had planned to retire but all things considered it really was the best option. So, I put in my papers… and soon afterwords, the “unintended path” began to show its full worth.

My retirement became official and I started planning what I would do. 38 days after this, the COVID Pandemic was announced and the world suddenly became a very different place. Think back in your own memories of those days not so long ago. We all remember them in one way or another. Mine focused on family, friends, and how glad I was NOT to be teaching during these times. Many of my friends and acquaintances often told me how lucky I was to be out of public education at the time. But the life I had known before was gone. “What will I do now?” became a kind of mantra. During the Pandemic, I isolated like so many others. But unlike so many others, I wasn’t content to sit in front of my TV and be passively living through Netflix ALL DAY LONG! How could I make this work out for me? How could I make real that “what stands in the way, becomes the way?”

I devised a plan. Everyday would be an opportunity for study and reflection on some new topic that I had never had the time to study like I had wanted. Calculus, trigonometry, and geometry were revisited. Astronomy was read more often. I started studying French again on-line. My music studies were begun in earnest on the piano and I searched for a new violin teacher who could advance my studies (again, a good decision). I had the time to revisit some of the classics of the Western Canon of literature like Dante, Homer, the classic Greek playwrights, Epicurus, and the Stoics…. but the Stoics came to me in a more modern form. I discovered the writings of Ryan Holiday and was propelled forward. I became an ardent Stoic. 

The months of isolation also allowed me to refine my Zen practices, finish my Chashitsu for the Tea Ceremony, and it also let me cook for myself in a way that was beyond just the utilitarian Sundays making lunches for the workweek. Then, I was able to spend a lot more time with my father. Mom had died 9 years earlier and I knew that he needed me to come around more often. The obstacle to action had made other actions possible… dad would only have a little less than 3 years left. It was time well spent. If I was a butterfly, only now had I emerged from my chrysalis to “full adulthood” and become the “me” I had wanted to be. When the family estate was finally dispersed, I had both a time and financial freedom that I had never known possible. It is the most freedom I’ve ever known; more so than I had when I was young. I’m still getting used to it.

As a result of the Pandemic, my gym closed. But, my trainer was able to make his business model be one of coming to the client and I had the good sense to have started building up gym equipment during the interregnum between my dismissal and retirement. I am in even better shape than before the Pandemic.  I bought an electric assist bike and spent good weather days biking through my city to my favorite coffee shop for tea, reading, and then writing my blog. I became an essayist. I watched a very special place being built from scratch across the street from the coffee shop: The Jacquelyn. I became its first member and now have the chance to meet new people of very diverse backgrounds while helping to support artists in my city. And the opportunities for travel are now beginning to come to fruition as the nation has shed the Pandemic and the economy is steady and growing. What could have happened had I chosen the other roads?

I fear often that I would have been miserable at work should I have stayed teaching. The politics of the times might have done me in, and as such I think they were partly responsible for “The Incident” that lead me here. My time with dad would have been shortened irrevocably, my retirement would have happened sooner than planned regardless of my wishes, my health would have been effected… in short, it would have been a poor substitute for what I have now. I think it apropos to state that I don’t believe in divine interventions but I do sense that there is a flow, a “grace” in the Universe that can be harnessed and made to be of a benefit to you and yours if you feel wisely how it’s flowing… and then flow with it. For me, my time had come to start my Third Life - being a writer with the freedom to observe the Universe around him and relate those observations to others. To be an Essayist… To live with a freedom that very few ever come to know. “What stands in the way, becomes the way.” Marcus Aurelius wrote… and he was right perhaps even more that he knew in spite of his status as a Philosopher King.  But what about you?

I loved teaching… but it was time to go. I did not see that until it was forced on me by circumstances. Were the forces of the Universe at play and trying to teach me something? At the risk of anthropomorphizing the Universe… perhaps. In 12 step recovery programs, there’s the saying,”Tough times don’t last, tough people do.” and there’s a lot to be said for this. You must first know yourself and what makes you happy. That’s a tall task for most people. But if you can accomplish this, you’ll have a much better feeling about yourself and your path… even if it’s the “unexpected” kind. Our “dreams” are but the start of our journey and should not be the ultimate goal… that should be happiness. My childhood dream was to be an astronomer. In my later years, my Third Life, I can do that as a citizen scientist and I’m doing just that. What path are the obstacles in your life sending you down? Do you see the opportunities on this path? Was Robert Frost being an American Stoic before the movement had taken place and giving us a lesson for the future? We must all take our disappointments and the unexpected twists and turns of fate and turn them to our advantage. We must come to understand the poets last stanza:

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.