The Road Not Taken

I don't know how I ended up reading this (among other books) list of biographies last year;

1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

2. Albert Einstein by Walter Isaacson

3. Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

4. Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

5. The Wizard of Menlo Park by Randall Strauss

6. Merrell Vories by Clarence W Hall (Not exact name)

To this list, I will like to add "The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of CS Lewis" by Alan Jacobs.

What relates a Wizard, a writer/fantasist, a businessman, an artist, a philosopher, a hippie nerd, a missionary, and a university professor? If you're conversant with world history, you'll recognize a few names there and indeed they are very different. Except that they had something in common. They traveled "The Road Less Travelled". To follow these paths, they exhibited a streak of rebellion. They were independent thinkers, persistent persons, and driven by something else that does not drive many of us.

The Road Less Travelled is the uncommon road, the road where nothing is predictable. The road where you are risking it all. But indeed it is the road that holds the promise of anything new. Of course, their streak of rebelliousness sometimes went overboard. For instance, Thomas Edison insisting to manage his business resulted in massive business failures- he had no single quality of a good businessman. CS Lewis insisting to take care of Mrs. Moore costs him a lot. Da Vinci's homosexuality almost placed him on the wrong side of history. Franklin caused a family fracas after running away from home. And Albert Einstein had to suffer to become a lecturer. Their stubbornness went overboard.

Anyway, except for their choice of taking the lonely road we wouldn't have The Chronicles of Narnia, we wouldn't have known that the earth was different from the way many scientists had claimed it was, we wouldn't have had Fire services and public libraries, we wouldn't have had Mentholatum and we wouldn't have had the incandescent bulb.

Look, the world is different because these men went on the Road Less Travelled. Albert Einstein was to start all his thoughts from a position that was impossible, then walking through to prove it. What if we start thinking that way? Nothing will really be impossible.

Benjamin Franklin was always odd, in that his opinions were mostly. He, alone single-handedly saved the Convention that formalized America into a full Country. Many of the representatives came with diverse opinions and were willing to blow up if their opinions were not followed. Franklin suggested a compromise and it was during the convention that he uttered these legendary words "I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"

While Jeff Bezos was thinking of starting Amazon, one thought that pushed him to start despite his boss not supporting him was this; "For me, the right way to make that kind of very personal decision, because those decisions are personal, they're not like data-driven business decisions. They are, "What does your heart say?"

And for me, the best way to think about it was to project myself forward to age 80 and say, "Look, when I'm 80 years old, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have." I don't want to be 80 years old and in a quiet moment of reflection, thinking back over my life, and cataloging a bunch of major regrets.

In most cases, our biggest regrets turn out to be acts of omission. Its paths not taken and they haunt us. We wonder what would have happened. I knew that when I'm 80, I would never regret trying this thing (quitting a good job to start Amazon) that I was super excited about and it failing.

If it failed, fine. I would be very proud of the fact when I'm 80 that I tried. And I also knew that it would always haunt me if I didn't try. And so that would be a regret, it would be a 100 percent chance of regret if I didn't try and basically a 0 percent chance of regret if I tried and failed. That's a useful metric for any important life decision"

Take the Road Less Travelled and feel free to recite these words of the crazy ones on your way

"*Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.*" Steve Jobs