Robert Frost wrote a poem called “The Road Not Taken.” It’s a fairly commonly studied poem in schools, and it’s often taught to help students understand the difficulty of making choices. Let’s listen to the poem, and then see what it might mean for our adult lives.
Mr. Frost talks about two roads – a more heavily traveled road – which turns out to be the road he did not take, and a less traveled road.….. the road that he took, that I think represents the high road. It’s easier to take the low road – the road more commonly traveled – the road filled with getting even and getting revenge. The low road is pretty heavily traveled – it’s where you can compare stories with other travelers about ways to make others look bad, techniques on lying about someone’s character, ways to make outrageous false claims and slander, and countless other strategies to hurt someone. That road is filled with traffic. It’s filled with angry, jaded people who are clearly not filled with peace.
The road less traveled – the high road – is not so well-traveled. The traffic is lighter. Its travelers are calmer and quieter. These travelers are working hard to find something good about each person. They are trying to figure out how to handle a tough situation with dignity and love. Make no mistake, these travelers on the high road are feeling pain. These travelers on the high road are often lonely and wistful. They often shake their heads with disbelief.
Robert Frost concludes his poem with the words: “I took the road less traveled, and that has made all of the difference.”
When should we take the high road, how do we take the high road, and what does that really look like?
Painful confrontations and arguments are an unfortunate part of life. People can get downright mean and behave in unbelievably hurtful ways. How are we supposed to respond to that? As children, we either cry, or we tell on the person who hurt us. Children have melt- downs from hurtful comments. They just don’t have any ability to cope with their feelings being hurt.
How about us, as adults? Our feelings get hurt, too. What do we do? Well, we either take the more traveled road of anger and getting even, or getting back at, or we dig down and find within us the ability to give grace, to not respond in anger or revenge, and we take the road less traveled – we take the high road. Can any of us ALWAYS take the high road? Absolutely not. But we can find ourselves on that higher road more often.
Monique Honaman, author of “Staying on the High Road when the low road is calling”, wrote the following words:
‘The high road has less traffic’ is a life philosophy that says you maintain your moral compass, your personal code of ethics, and your values, at all times. Taking the high road means you are able to look yourself in the mirror and be proud of how you acted, or reacted, in light of trying situations. It means that you had an opportunity to respond with equally nasty behavior, and you chose not to. ~ “Staying on the High Road When the Low Road is Calling” by Monique Honaman
What actually happens to us when we are enduring an attack from someone who is firing off at us from the lower road?? They are speaking -- or yelling – from a place of anger, or even rage. They are attacking because of their own wounded feelings. Sure – that’s easy to articulate right now. I’m not in the middle of someone attacking me or ignoring me, or making a hurtful statement. When we are attacked, we want to sink to the same level. We want to strike back with our own words, even though we know that trying to make this idiot see our view will probably solve nothing.
According to an article entitled, “Don't Get Hijacked: Take the High Road!” By Dr. Laura Markham : “All those challenging emotions that flood us and wash us on to the low road can be traced, at core, to feelings of fear, powerlessness, grief, disappointment and disconnection.”
How can we find ourselves on the high road more often?
1. Practice mindfulness. Notice what’s happening NOW, in your body. Every time you take a deep breath and feel the sensations in your body, you’re practicing mindfulness. You’re pressing the pause button so you aren’t just getting triggered. That gives you a choice about which road to choose.
2. Accept feelings and take loving action. What does that mean? We usually start sliding down onto the low road by tolerating behavior we don’t like without taking action, so we get increasingly annoyed and finally get hijacked by our anger. The high road is accepting feelings while we take loving action.
3. Don’t get hijacked by the low road. Those emergency feelings of fight, flight and freeze tell us that we’re on the low road. You aren’t that emotion; you are observing that emotion. It will pass. Melt that rage away by letting yourself feel the fear, sadness, and disappointment under the anger.
4. The low road never leads to the destination you want.
The low road is a dead end.
Children who feel ugly act ugly. All of us act ugly when we are out of sorts.
The low road is fear. The high road is love.
Sometimes the most loving response is to not respond at all. There is a sort of wisdom that creeps into our heads from time to time that tells us to just stop, and let it pass. Do nothing to fuel the fire. Separate yourself from the one who is offending you. Take some time apart.
Taking the high road sometimes means to choose to simply NOT RESPOND. This might mean the end of communication between the two people, or even the end of the relationship altogether. This action can still be considered taking the high road, because there has been no “stooping to the low ground…” no effort to seek revenge, or discredit the other person personally or publically.
There is an exercise that therapists sometimes use to help people create healthy boundaries with people, especially the people in their immediate family. The exercise is called gifts and poison. It goes like this:
Imagine your immediate family members seated at a table at which you are the birthday guest. Your family members are all alive and you are magically transported back to ….say, your tenth birthday. As you sit there, each family member offers you a gift. You graciously accept their gifts and thank them. For example, my brother gave me the gift of laughter, my mom gave me the gift of the love of words, and my father gave me the gift of strength.
Then, in the blink of an eye, each family member also extends a cup towards you – they are offering you a drink of poison. My brother offered self-doubt, my mother’s cup was filled with anxiety and my father’s poison was insecurity. They don’t know they are offering these cups that come from their own brokenness. You firmly, but politely refuse to drink their poison. You accept their gifts, but deny their poison.
This exercise can be applied to those who are offending you and shouting at you from the low road. Not responding to someone who has offended you is deciding to not drink the poison that they have consistently offered you.
Taking the high road – the choice to love – is giving the gift of grace. Grace – that mysterious, generous do-over, that unconditional support when you really have no reason to do so, that thirty-fifth chance to start all over, that ability to see the other person in their best light instead of their ugliness. Grace – that thing we all want and rarely want to give.
Taking the high road means trusting God or your higher power to fix it for you, because, you have realized that you CAN’T fix it. You cannot correct this situation. It’s beyond your control, and it’s driving you crazy. Why should we take the high road? Because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s tough to love some people. Some days it’s almost impossible to love any people!! People are messy, they’re needy, they’re weak at the wrong time, strong at the wrong time, stubborn, immature and just plain difficult!! And so are we. We all need a break. We all need that second or twentieth chance. We all need grace. So love them anyway.
Ultimately, taking the high road is choosing to take the path of love.
Choosing love may not always be our first thought, or our first choice, but it is certainly the best choice. Love is a mighty force that covers so much. I love the simplicity and strength found in the Bible in the middle of what has come to be known as the love chapter — I Corinthians, chapter 13:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. — I Corinthians 13:7-8
I took the road less traveled. And that has made all of the difference. Let’s choose the road less traveled – because it is the high road. It is the choice of love. Amen.
Rachel St. John Gilbert wrote these powerful words:
“Taking the high road is hard work — walking uphill requires strength and effort. Anyone can take the low road — walking downhill is easy.”
My prayer for each of us today is that we will trust love, and find ourselves spending more time on the high road.
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