The Road Not Taken

Where does schooling end exactly?

For me I've always thought of school being over after college. I've always considered college as a necessary part of life, something that must be done in order to achieve a job. This isn't the case for everyone. I learned today that my brother will no longer be attending college. Initially, I found this news crazy. I have come to understand though, that right now, in his life, college isn't the best choice.

As we all grow up, those around us always want what is best for us. I have come to realize that what is best for us is what makes us happy. For me, I'm happy in college. I have learned so much about myself, and become the person that no one ever got to know in high school. College is going to get me into a profession that I will enjoy spending my time at, and while I'm working towards that profession, I enjoy the learning process.

For my brother though, college doesn't make him happy. Right now in his life, one quarter of college is enough, and it is time to find what will make him happy. All day, whenever I think that my brother is no longer going to be going to school, I think of the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

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 traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Will has chosen that second path, and for him I hope that it is the path that will make all the difference. I hope that he will find that which will make him happy. And if he should choose, not to go back on his path, but to meander back to the other some day in the future, then I hope that he does it to make himself happy.

So I ask again, where does schooling end exactly?

I say we never stop learning. So while Will might not be attending some institution that calls itself a school, he is still in a type of school. This school however, is the school of life, and he will still have those around him wanting what is best for him.