Like all great poems, there are multiple, opposite meanings built into it, held in tension by deliberately ambiguous meanings of words. Here is one set of opposites: “it made all the difference” (in the last line); This could be a good difference or a bad difference or — since, importantly, we don’t even know if the speaker will survive in the future to utter that last wistful line — a catastrophic difference.
Here’s another set of opposites: making a difference vs. not even making a difference — I’d argue that these are both possible (it’s not that one is a “popular misreading” as claimed by the article). The speaker is acknowledging that he has no really good reason, after all, for choosing one road over the other at the moment of decision; he is recognizing the bit of self-delusion he had to exercise in order to rouse himself to a decision...but that certainly doesn’t mean that it won’t indeed turn out to have “made all the difference” in the end. He and we just don’t know.
But, taking a step back, I’d argue that it isn’t even clear that the chosen road really did turn out to be “equally well traveled” (as the commentary of the article hinges on). This itself could be another bit of mild self-delusion. The speaker suffers from grass-is-greener-itis, always pining for the road not taken (it’s even in the name of the poem!). He did not choose the road he was last looking down (until it “bent into the underbrush”) because it looked too well traveled to him and he wants to be independent... but once he chooses the other road and sets out, this “other road” also begins looking too well-traveled for his taste. Chronic dissatisfaction coloring his perception? After all, his perception would have been more objective when pondering both roads equally, before investing himself in the decision. Perhaps the road taken really is less well-traveled. Again, we just don’t know the underlying reality; the poem deliberately prevents us from knowing.
Here’s another set of opposites: making a difference vs. not even making a difference — I’d argue that these are both possible (it’s not that one is a “popular misreading” as claimed by the article). The speaker is acknowledging that he has no really good reason, after all, for choosing one road over the other at the moment of decision; he is recognizing the bit of self-delusion he had to exercise in order to rouse himself to a decision...but that certainly doesn’t mean that it won’t indeed turn out to have “made all the difference” in the end. He and we just don’t know.
But, taking a step back, I’d argue that it isn’t even clear that the chosen road really did turn out to be “equally well traveled” (as the commentary of the article hinges on). This itself could be another bit of mild self-delusion. The speaker suffers from grass-is-greener-itis, always pining for the road not taken (it’s even in the name of the poem!). He did not choose the road he was last looking down (until it “bent into the underbrush”) because it looked too well traveled to him and he wants to be independent... but once he chooses the other road and sets out, this “other road” also begins looking too well-traveled for his taste. Chronic dissatisfaction coloring his perception? After all, his perception would have been more objective when pondering both roads equally, before investing himself in the decision. Perhaps the road taken really is less well-traveled. Again, we just don’t know the underlying reality; the poem deliberately prevents us from knowing.