Into My Own

by Robert Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,

So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,

Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,

But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day


Into their vastness I should steal away,


Fearless of ever finding open land,


Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back,


Or those should not set forth upon my track


To overtake me, who should miss me here


And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew–


Only more sure of all I thought was true.

To embark upon a path as a freelance grant writer is to venture away from what is known and comfortable, from a job and co-workers you’ve known and perhaps liked so well. It is a step into a vast open landscape of business where you may never find, as Frost writes, open land again. But if you are meant to be an entrepreneur, then there are things about yourself you know to be true, that others may only seek and never find. Some others may follow after you and find you to see if you were in fact were being true to yourself to strike such a daring path.

To start your own business is a bold adventure into a mask of gloom. But there is open land out there to be found and only the brave will discover it. Many of us cling unhappily to the safety of the familiar and routine. Some dare not enter that which stretches away into the unknown, perhaps to the edge of doom. Leaving the well-trodden path leads away from those who might miss us, and we them.