吴柏德：天主教辅仁大学选手，第18届中国日报社“21世纪杯”全国英语演讲比赛冠军，同时获得麦格希演讲艺术之星，Navitas最具自信演说奖，及海西文化大使。

个人简介：吳柏德，台灣台南人，目前就讀天主教輔仁大學，雙主修英文語言學系及臨床心理學系。自幼喜愛語言。於2011及2010獲得輔仁大學主辦「輔仁盃英語演講比賽」冠軍。   這次半決賽的題目從兩位小朋友透過社交網路達成夢想開始，闡述社交網路的功能及重要性，並將社交網路比喻為「夢想」的網路，所有參與者都應該尊重並維護。決賽的題目則是從自身經驗出發，談到人生中「未走之路」不僅是過去，也包含現在及未來。從過去借鏡，向未來邁進是弗洛斯特這首斯延伸的宗旨。

演讲稿：

I was seventeen, almost a senior in high school. I was riding my bike to school. I had taken a special route to pick up a gift, but that day, "the road less traveled by" led to disaster. Crossing a road, a drunk driver ran a red light, slammed into me, and shattered my left knee.

It made all the difference.

I was forced to postpone college, plunged into painful therapy . . .  but eventually, I also learned much about life and myself. I found the strength to withstand adversity, learned compassion, and above all, I learned that the road not taken is not just about regrets or choices but also about the perpetual now and the always-coming future.

When I first studied Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” in middle school, I was unable to grasp its ambiguity. I always thought that Frost’s persona chooses  “a road less traveled by” and lives life being subversive and irreverent. I was wrong. In the poem, both of the two roads that “diverged in a yellow wood” are actually “about the same.” But there has to be a choice, and sometimes, they it can be involuntary (as I learned the hard way).  This makes me extremely thankful and resolute when I can make conscious choices and plan for the future, and so I know now that Frost's poem is also about "the road not [yet] taken."

For everyone, this means something slightly different. For me, it means constant vigilance, learning, and love. Our journey is hard, complex, and it often presents unexpected twists, but reflecting on the roads not taken and not yet taken each day gives us a little more strength and confidence. Life cannot and will not me perfect, and the truth is it will end. But as Willa Cather would say, “The end is nothing, the road is all.” The road not taken in the past, and the road not yet taken that lies ahead.

But about the present? It joints the past and the future. What then, is “the road not taken” in the perpetual now? Personally, I find an answer in these lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses”:
 
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
 
Thank you.