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.

What changed was that I found myself surrounded by people—starting with my mom, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, and leading to a string of wonderful role models and mentors—who kept pushing me to see more than what was directly in front of me, to see the boundless possibilities of the wider world and the unexplored possibilities within myself (Moore 179). 

The author explains that the friends and family he interacted with when he was growing up impacted his personal goals and behaviours. The author was surrounded by people who genuinely cared about him in his life which was a major contributor to the success he currently has. In comparison the role model the other Wes Moore had was a very successful drug-dealing brother. This was a problem because the other Wes Moore was seeing at a young age how much money his brother was making doing a job that was illegal and how little his mother was making having a real job. This gave the Other Wes Moore a distorted view on crime and money. This is because the Other Wes Moore did not grow up with good role models and found that the only person he saw as success in his life was his drug-dealing brother. Later in the book, Wes tries to change to a legal profession by being a carpenter to live a good life for his new family. The carpentry job did not last long unfortunately as the influence of crime money from when he was younger was still with him. At the end of the book, the other Wes Moore's free life would end as he killed a police officer in an armed jewel robbery. In life, it is surprising that our success is very dependent on the people we choose to spend our time with and the people we choose to listen to.

It was crazily accessible and insanely potent—and addictive. My friends and I would regularly trade the most remarkable stories we’d overheard or witnessed: A father who left his family and robbed his parents for money to buy rock. A pregnant mother who sold her body to get another hit. Someone’s grandmother who blew her monthly Social Security check on crack (Moore 44). 

To the other Wes Moore, the drug trade was very important to his family life as his brother Tony was a drug dealer selling crack in his neighbourhood. As both Wes Moores grew up as black men in Baltimore in the 1980’s, their youth was greatly impacted by the crack epidemic. The crack epidemic in the United States was the surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Millions of Americans were affected resulting in an increase in crime and violence in America’s poorer neighbourhoods. Crack represented a major distraction and contributed to child abuse, neglect, and abandonment of parental responsibilities. Children born to parents who used crack had a challenging home life as they would often neglect the needs of their child. Most of these young African American men inherited their parent's developmental disadvantages in their learning, and poor preparation for a conventional lifestyle. The crack epidemic also resulted in violence in the communities affected as between 1984 and 1989 the homicide rate for black males aged 14 to 17 more than doubled while the homicide rate for black adults aged 18 to 24 increased as well.