Wisdom from the Road Less Traveled

first two sections of this book (on discipline and love) absolutely HIT... I felt like he was speaking to me, it was so directly relevant to my life. I like the way this author thinks through and defines different emotional experiences (bell hooks uses his definition of love within All About Love)

The cons are big too - firstly it was written in in 1979 and there are a few seriously racist metaphors..... like.... what??? who let this be published like that? secondly, the latter half of the book is pretty God heavy. At first it was a nice shift and really made me think about my relationship with religion, but after a while it was clear that his personal beliefs were coloring his text and it got old.

this book should be 3 starts but the first two sections were so good that I had to give it 4 stars still. strong recommend (just those two) if you are also someone who is emotionally restored by reading "psych books" during tough times. for me, it was what i needed right now!

Hätte das buch zu keiner passenderen zeit lesen können als jetzt. Mega gut logisch strukturiert und thematisch mächtig und hilfreich.

"The Road Less Traveled" is an American classic of psychological self-help. A friend of mine gave me this book several years ago, and the book surprised me in several ways. For one thing, it was not a feel good book that seeks to tell readers that they are not to blame for their own problems. This book actually teaches the reader that there are aspects of his personality that will add or take away from his own happiness and success in life. Things like virtue actually mean something in this book. That's a refreshing departure from the "I'm OK, you're OK" school of psychology from the 1970s.

Another refreshing aspect of this book is that it actually recognizes that there is such a thing as good and evil. When Peck talks about love, he is not talking about the abstract concept of flowers and sunshine. He really believes that love is an attitude built on work and commitment to the relationship.

These two aspects of this book make it a departure from the feel-good psychology books that people love to read. Now, this book is not all perfect. Peck does preach a bit of the narcissistic ethic that if you don't feel good about a relationship you should leave. Commitment to one's life partner and children are still not as important as one's subjective feelings of happiness, and that's a shame. But, Peck does not take a condescending attitude toward faith, love and virtue. I actually took away quite a bit from this book. I think that most readers will learn a lot from it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a good book of psychological self-help.

Đây là một cuốn sách lạ lùng. Một cuốn sách nói về tình yêu, nhưng không có chút lãng mạn.

Sách nói tình yêu không phải phải lòng, không phải quyến luyến, không phải lệ thuộc, không phải từ bỏ chính mình, không phải cảm xúc. Yêu là ý chí quyết định hành động yêu ngay cả khi không có cảm xúc. Yêu là quan tâm, là đương đầu, là dấn thân, là tự chế, là chấp nhận khác biệt, là dám liều mất.

Sách nói tình yêu là ý chí động lực để con người phát triển qui phạm - đình hoãn khoái cảm, nhận lãnh trách nhiệm, phụng sự sự thật và quân bình.

2 điều nhớ. Một là mỗi người đều có một tấm bản đồ cho riêng mình để tìm đường để không lạc lối, cần cập nhật để không "quá đát". Hai là cuộc đời là một chuỗi những chết đi sống lại của những cái tôi.

I've got this book as a gift and it was worth reading it so I know how not to write a book! It is really religiously biased and outdated. I understand that this book is about spiritual growth, yet when there are sub-chapters about paranormal activities and then the author states that "The most striking feature of the process of physical evolution is that it is a miracle" (p.252) the book loses any real value. It is nothing more than a superstitious christian nonsense tentatively packed as a serious book written by a physician.

A little foreword from me before I begin reviewing this book:

During my post-graduation years, I had the priviledge of working with a madam who used to tell us, “If your slit lamp (used for eye examination) stops working, my verdict will remain the same, ‘I will need all patients worked up by 1:30 p.m. sharp. I don’t care HOW you will go about making that happen but that I will have no other result.’”

Sounds bossy? Actually, on the contrary, it served us more than otherwise (Thank you Sushmita ma’am). This do-or-die attitude of hers had served to strip us off the small excusal ways of being most of us are wont to endorse at the drop of a hat. In a matter of days of working with her, our entire way of being had altered from a problem-oriented mindset into a solution-oriented mindset. If things went out of our hands, we clamoured like crazy to flip past options available to us, selecting whichever best dissolved the issue away. If none worked, we improvised.


(Foreword over)

This (as stated above) is the same attitude the author, M. Scott Peck urges us to make use of when dealing with life. He says,


Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?


I won’t beat around the bush and leap into footnotes that are of relevance here. First, on the flaws of authoritarian parenting (Gosh! It is so so flawed!) I would say:

(I’ll combine my thoughts and the author's thoughts to help extend the messages that so many adults in the world need to hear)....apologies for the sarcasm that I will bring along but they are GROSSLY essential here!


Author’s voice—> The feeling of being valuable— ‘I am valuable person’- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline, which is a direct product of parental love.

My thoughts——> Most homes I have personally come by (in India) have revealed corporal punishment as the mode of disciplining someone.

Hah! How deluded such homes are! Tch! Tch! Raising broken individuals and releasing them into the world, adding to the depression bank of the world!

Author’s voice—> The only way healthy-minded individuals (ones who value their time, are disciplined and delay gratification) could be sent out into the world is by first ushering them with parental love. If that isn’t secured, the rest cannot follow.

Hence, if authoritarian language or a demeaning tone of voice is used while speaking to the child, how would that serve to foster him with the feeling of goodness he would need for maturity to come about?

My remark—“Makers of men, creators of leaders, be careful what kind of leaders you are producing here!”

(Line borrowed from “Scent of a Woman,” very appropriate in salutation of the author’s message)

So I feel that this is a novel every human who wishes to have a family someday must read. A child isn’t someone you yank into existence over ruling prejudices (“You have to marry by 30 and have a child” ) or out of a bucket-list selection.

A child is a spirit if you will, and given the time and contemplation, I reckon every parent is bound to come to recognise monumental responsibility that one naturally begins to adhere to in understanding who it is she or he has conceived. The problem is so many never grant themselves that moment of contemplation (ever!)

This book helped me understand love/ relationships and romance in a way no book has ever conveyed to me before

What is popularly considered as love (and very wrongly so), the author observes, is the jolt of fancy that blinds one when he impresses another. While a large chunk of the world, including songs and movies endorse this concept, it really has absolutely nothing to do with what a person really is after, which is a complete dissolution of the self when loving someone, whereby the ego is constantly left behind in interactions/exchanges with the person.

What I understood from the author’s language is this—>Love is forevermore just one thing, and that is personal expansion, where you are no longer this puny small “me-right-here” version of yourself but an ever-expanding piece of existence. For only when you expand yourself can you include another as a part of your own self. Once you include another as part of your own self, there is only one way to be—> devotion/ putting their needs before your own (not alongside). Think about it——there really is no other way to be when expansion happens! : )


My additional word here—>The degree of deflection from this truth some communities endorse here is way shocking——coercing individuals to marry against their will. The message one is supposed to mutter from then on (many of my friends will know where these words are coming from : D), “Marry first then love with follow” (I wonder what degree of reversal-charge must such a belief carry for dreamers that wish the Earth spun from East to West?! Huge! *holds-her-chin-and-thinks-deeply*)

So, jokes apart, it’s really sad that more than half of the people in the world are floundering in their relationships. What good it would have done them to have read a book like this first! You don’t love to get, you love to expand and include that ‘other’ as ‘yourself.’ : )

More insights on ‘Love’ as stated by the author….

“Genuine love, on the other hand, implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom.”

“True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.”


I have never spent so much time writing a review on ‘Love,’ but the urge to do so arrived after reading this book. The author wrote many chapters on the topic of ‘Love,’ which, if you read would start revealing to you that you can only be truly loving if you prioritise the value of the other person above all else (even beyond your own possessions and honour). Never losing sight of the value that exists in the life of another automatically makes one prioritise the importance of good behaviour no matter what the situation at hand demands. In a sub-chapter on the umbrella heading of ‘Love,’ the author speaks of the art of loving confrontation (because there will often be times when one maybe correct in a situation while the significant other will be wrong in the decision-making). In realising the value of the other person in such a situation, one never assumes a position of a pedestal while speaking to him or her and communicates with utmost care the reasons for which he or she (person ‘A’ say) thinks that it would be wise in that moment of their lives to act in accordance with his/her word (and not the word hailing from the significant other, person ‘B’ say)


Beautiful! I feel very proud having read this book!

What’s more, and one comes to recognise this as one continues reading, is that love does not and will never naturally happen. It is in keeping continuous check with the leaps of ego that continues to want to poke its nose, that one genuinely comes to impart the highest form of love, the kind that doesn’t mind being invisible, obscure, and wholly inclusive of the other’s needs and making them one’s own.

There are a total of 14 chapters on ‘Love,’ and an enormous weightage has been lent on unraveling the myth of 'romantic love.' : )
It’s a myth, folks! The more one reads this book, the more one recognises that what really is love is, is disciplined. (And naturally so : ) )

To keep this review from lengthening too much, I would just like to say that ultimately the author stresses on the importance of utilising every single experience of one’s own life to evolve into higher consciousness and this includes ‘love’ and ‘creative pursuits.’ That is, not using anything for the expansion of the ego but for the ultimate expansion into infinite consciousness.

Every creative pursuit must serve to stretch one into the higher echelons of who they are. It ought to be a stepping stone for that. Feeling all bloated and full of oneself is the exact opposite : )
Reminds me of a line by Lao Tzu— “When the work is done, it is forgotten, that is why it lasts forever.”


Amongst every book that I have read in my life, this is definitely one I am very grateful for! : ) What a teacher this book has been!

As other readers have pointed out, this book started really well but later became dated hogwash and pseudo-spiritual psychobabble. The author supports his statements by presenting a number of case studies in his psychotherapy practice where he often uses the interpretation of dreams and Freudian’s slips as evidence of deeply buried issues with his patients. He mixes psychoanalysis (many references to Carl Jung), mysticism, philosophy and religion.

I personally found the first section, on discipline, excellent; section two, on love, was OK, I started to lose interest on section 3, on growth and religion, by section 4, when he mentioned the paranormal ,such as telepathy, I was ready to throw the book against the wall.
There were interesting points early on, and some sections that I found useful, but this is not a book that I would recommend.

Fav quotes:

We cannot solve a problem by saying “It’s not my problem.” We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say “This is my problem and it’s up to me to solve it.” But many, so many, seek to avoid the pain of their problems by saying to themselves: “This problem was caused me by other people, or by social circumstances beyond my control, and therefore it is up to other people or society to solve this problem for me. It is not really my personal problem.”

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged. The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers.

The reason people lie is to avoid the pain of challenge and its consequences.

When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.

If we want to be heard we must speak in a language the listener can understand and on a level at which the listener is capable of operating. If we are to love we must extend ourselves to adjust our communication to the capacities of our beloved.

Whenever I finish reading to a psychotherapist, I immediately decide not to read for them any more since all they write about is already known, alternatively I seek novels, like Russian ones, Distovisky’s particularly who could deeply write about our inner feelings and fears.., then I slowly discover the benefit I unconsciously gained from reading to psychotherapists in my relationship with family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Scott wrote about his experiences with the patients, and shared their tales, ups & downs, and fears ..etc. which is very valuable.

I enjoyed reading the first two parts of the book (Discipline & Love), and the role and meaning of these concepts in our lives.
Scott believes that there are lucky people who gain self discipline capacity from their childhood, doing their homeworks regularly without guiding or monitoring of their parents. Which it is a clear indicator that they’ll be self disciplined adults, fathers, mothers ..etc. Who can easily bear the responsibility.

Secondly, Love part: Scott wrote about illusion of falling in love, and wrote: No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough.


I always believed in this, although I’m engaged, and I always questioned myself, whether I’m prepared to listen to my partner in the rest of my life, as I already started exercising this stressful action (listening), because listening is a driver of attention. There’s no better way securing our relations than attention.



Then I totally agree with Scott when wrote:
Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present.



This part took me back a conversation I had last year with a religious friend who got married for 3 months before our conversation, he was trying to convince me to get married, to experience the happiness that he’s living in literally, I tried to end the conversation with nodding and smiling, but it didn’t work, So, I had to face him with my thoughts about his experience, I knew his experience is not a typical, since he never seen his wife before their wedding night, and all he knew about her before that is her name and maybe her age, and he’s happy with his marriage not because of a genuine love or found out that he and his partner are compatible .. etc, it’s because they decided to believe in their fate regardless of the results.

Scott, wrote about separateness and respect of individuality in marriage lives, and it’s not necessary that spouses have common hobbies, you could prefer reading and should not push your partner on reading, creating balance in our marriage lives is a success, maintaining separateness and individuality is a great success sustains our relations.


I feel that I’m lucky because I could read this book before getting married, as I’m planning for it. Since I’m suffering of Inner emptiness and the hunger to fill it.