the road taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both...

~ Robert Frost

Selecting The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost as one of the pieces in the higher education Literature Studies is probably one of the very limited sane decisions the Board of Education of Malaysia has ever made.

Many times in life we are left with too many choices but only allowed for one. Though it's not a life or death decision - life still goes on regardless - the consequence of the decision stays with us for life.

And as mentioned in the poem, it's doubtful that we can go back to where we were and try it all over again with a different route.

"Yet knowing how way leads on to way"

It's the 'way leads on to way' that keeps us busy each passing day. Busy clearing paths just to be able to keep walking (sometimes even knowing that there are better options out there) and never had a chance or time to look around for a more beautiful, more rewarding, more interesting or simply, a smoother path.

Somewhere ages and ages hence, we'd look back at the path we've traveled and wonder 'Oh my, wth was I doing?'

  

Staring at this textbook, it makes me wonder if I should continue to clear paths down this route? 

The engineering design industry has reached a state where the design of a structure lies not on the engineer's hand calculations but on what the authority justifies as 'pass', the architect justifies as beautiful, and the contractor justifies as cheap. Design knowledge is not as useful as what the mouth can do. It's at an ailing state.

Nevertheless, I'm thankful to have kept this supposedly 'high-pay' job (not high-pay anymore at the moment), survived 3 rounds of redundancies (not sure if it's fortunate or unfortunate) and still going. If given a chance for take-two, I'd still choose the road taken. 

If I were to look back now, I'd say, 'Wow, what a journey.'

If I were to continue on and look back in 5 years time, I'd say, 'WTH was I doing?'

Hahahaih. Clearly aware of the problem but no Plan B at the moment.

The blur manager said, 'Nothing's worst than a demoralised engineer,'

Smart enough to point this out, but not quite smart for not knowing there are a few of these in his team. 

I'll be happy to see all the hands leave over time.
Mouth alone can't do all the paddling. :)