I started this book 2 months ago, which is a long time according to my standards, however, I don't regret it one bit.
The road less travelled is about spiritual growth, and how very few of us actually venture and take the leap of faith in that direction.
The first chapter defines discipline as "a system of techniques of dealing constructively with the pain of problem-solving -instead of avoiding that pain- in such a way that all of life's problems can be solved". It attributes our lack of discipline to inadequate parenting and the lack of the feeling valued by our parents. Then it explains 4 methods to solve this issue, which are: delaying gratification, assuming responsibilty, dedication to reality, and balancing. With some insight on neurosis, character disorders, when to withhold truth, the healthiness of depression and how it signals that a major change should be made in our maps.

The 2nd chapter "love" reveals that falling in love is not real love, and that eventually people fall out of love. That is because real love is an action, a commitment to the spiritual growth of oneself and of others. It also explains that dependency, cathexis and self-sacrifice are all mistaken for genuine love, which should be disciplined and promoting of separateness and independence.

The 3rd chapter starts by stating that everyone has a religion; "everyone has some understanding -some world view, no matter how limited or primitive or inaccurate". It also narrates 3 different cases that demonstrate how people can grow into religion or out of it.

The 4th chapter is about grace. It explains that serendipity is the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for, and that grace is "the powerful force originating outside of human consciousness which nurtures the spiritual growth of human beings". While I find myself unable to believe in grace or that the aim of spiritual growth is to become one with God, I was glad to learn of the force of entropy represented in our laziness "which is the lack of love", and that evil is real; "there really are people, and institutions made up of people, who respond with hatred in the presence of goodness and would destroy the good insofar as it is in their power to do so. They do this not with conscious malice but blindly, lacking awareness of their own evil-indeed, seeking to avoid any such awareness". This part was particulary terrifying; because that's what I believe in.

It ends by encouraging us to be open to grace, to welcome it whenever it comes, to prepare ourselves by becoming disciplined, wholly loving individuals, but to not actively seek it. "The awareness of the existence of grace can be of considerable assistance to those who have chosen to travel the difficult path of spiritual growth. For this awareness will facilitate their journey in at least three ways: it will help them to take advantage of grace along the way; it will give them a surer sense of direction; and it will provide encouragement."
I was not particulary impressed by this part about grace since I don't know whether I believe in it. However, as I take further steps along this road, I am sure that I will find an answer that satisfies me.

All in all, this book has changed my life in some subtle ways, it taught me that most of the time we don't "really" listen, and that in order to do so we must make a commitment and give our full attention even if what is being said bored the hell out of us. Caring is just that.
It also taught me to take full responsibilty of whatever happens to me, not to blame society or family or fate, and that to express anger one should think and reflect upon the best way to do that, not to head on blindly in the heat of the moment; because our emotions are our slaves, not the other way around...and some balance need be established between them and their masters "us".
It also taught me that we're all lazy to some degree, we don't want to live a life in constant thinking and reflection, yet this is the only way to grow. We all choose the easy way out, refusing to take responsibilty or to change our opinions and behaviours, yet this leads to a conflict between the conscious mind and the unconscious "who realizes that change must happen".
It also taught me that life is full of pain, and that trying to avoid that pain is never successful. It is only by facing it head on, by listening to our unconscious minds and adjusting our maps of reality and by actively extending ourselves to help nurture others, and consequently ourselves, do we take steps on the road less travelled, the road to spiritual growth.

Looking forward to reading other M. Scott Peck books! :'D

I have run across this book so many times in used bookstores that at some point, I don’t know when, it started to indicate in my mind that a store was overstocked with generic titles. I periodically stop in at thrift stores—hoping to salvage some prophetic oracle from the ravages of being sandwiched and left to die a slow death between the James Pattersons and Julie Garwoods of the bargain aisles—and there this book can be found in droves. The title, extrapolated from a poem by the great poet Robert Frost, coerced me on multiple occasions to pick it up and flip through it. The subtitle was hardly captivating, “A new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth.” I finally decided to take one home to determine to what extent my chronic nausea at seeing it and its legion brethren was valid.

From the outset of reading, I was mildly interested. Soon I became intensely interested. Dr. Peck starts with his definition of a neurosis, and points out that people’s biggest problem is the avoidance of pain. He firmly plants his thesis with a quote from Carl Jung, “[A] neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” A regular feature of our existence is change, and with the change of the external world, our internal maps of the world must undergo a change as well, or we become fixated on an outmoded index of reality. But this hurts, and to update one’s worldview is considered by many, albeit unconsciously, a hazard and inconvenience that is not worth the trouble. What’s worse, many would rather obscure any reminder of reality than adjust the old comfortable way of life and thinking.

After this prelude to the meaning of confusion and pain, he pulls back further to the beginning of our psychological development—birth. As a psychoanalyst, following most closely to the traditions of Jung and Freud, he maintains that a much of our malfunctions as adults stem from how we were raised by our parents. A parent who has never learned to discipline their own lives will not know how to affirm or discipline their children in healthy ways. Parenting involves knowing how to suffer with your child to help them learn to overcome their challenges, but without this ability to endure and hold out for the higher good, a parent will remain self-focused and unable to create an environment of stability and trust for a child to feel they are safe, and therefore, valuable. Feeling valuable and rooted is the most important prerequisite for self-discipline and the ability to delay gratification because, understood for what it really is, “self-discipline is self-caring”.

And yet, the author does not espouse a fatalistic sort of hard-wired neurology derived solely from one’s genes and upbringing. He believes firmly in the unique human ability to override past conditioning and forge new paths. He says this autonomous responsibility for one’s self is “perhaps the one [characteristic] that makes us most human...our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature.” And yet, ironically, this capacity is what we fear, referred to as the “pain of freedom”, for it means that we are master of, or at the very least partly responsible for, our choices, and thus our destiny is what he make of it.

Having established that we have a choice to delay gratification and suffer for the things we value and that will bring joy to our lives, he segways into the goal—and ultimately the deepest impetus—of self-discipline: love. Love, in the mind of Dr. Peck, is the goal of all nature. He defines love by contrasting it with what is often misunderstood as ‘falling in love’. Here Peck provides what I have found to be the most compelling and cogent explanation of physical-emotional infatuation that I have ever heard or read. He describes the phenomenon of falling in love as a total collapse of ego boundaries—the felt perimeters of the limits of one’s body and being—and pouring one’s self into another person’s cramped ego ‘container’ hoping to escape one’s lonely, and loathsome, existence. This inevitably leads to disillusionment as one or both parties realize that they did not extend their world in love, but only squeezed into the already crowded space of another lonely soul.
From there Peck defines genuine love as the extension of one’s ego boundaries without collapse, a thinning of the walls of one’s being to slowly blur the line between one’s self and others. Here Peck admits he leans on a mystery—the progress of a person who loves becoming more and more “identified with the world”. This process of investing one’s self, without losing one’s self, is referred to as cathexis, and Peck develops this by adding that “when we cathect an object outside of ourselves we also psychologically incorporate a representation of that object into ourselves”, and thereby broaden ourselves into less of an isolated and lonely entity.

I truly appreciated Peck’s elucidation of the dangers of co-dependency, referring to it as a form of parasitism. “When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual.” Nasty imagery. Next time you see a parent that refuses to acknowledge the autonomy of their child, refusing to accept that the child may grow up and not need them anymore, try to imagine the parent as a giant leach sucking the life and will out of the child, leaving only a limp, bloodless shell of a thing that will never develop strong legs to run from the giant bloodsucker with its razor-toothed mouth to their throat. Peck believes that for a person to truly benefit from another person, they must both develop firm boundaries or they are both liable to be harmful for each other. “Ego boundaries must be hardened before they can be softened. An identity must be established before it can be transcended.” He even goes so far as to call dependency ‘anti-love’. He urges his readers not to fool themselves into thinking that anything ought to be done exclusively for another person. Some things we must do because they put us right with ourselves, with others, and with God. The right thing is as much for us as it is for another. “Whenever we think of ourselves as doing something [solely] for someone else, we are in some way denying our own responsibility.” He returns again and again to this simple but often terrifying principle: to love another, we must first love ourselves.

The first 150 pages or so were the best. The rest I found to be somewhat speculative and even a bit rash in spots. I believe he is correct in his view that science is first founded on a belief of some sort, an implicit value system, and the denigration of religion by science is often not only as bigoted as any religious belief, but also backwards. Religion and science are mostly concerned with subject and object respectively, and there should be a healthy respect one for the other. Peck recognizes this dichotomy of roles, and does a great job of defending religion against science for the most part, but his book seemed to lose steam as he dabbled in subjects that weren’t his forte. He attempted to wax philosophical, and though I think he did all right and many may find his conclusions enlightening, I found it to stray too far off topic. It is true that his original thoughts in psychoanalysis are indebted to the linking of his philosophy of life to psychology, and his bravery in owning up to personal values in scientific pursuits is a huge leap beyond his peers, but I was more interested in the application of his beliefs in psychoanalysis, rather than a full review of his personal values and faith. That being said, I was much more familiar with the philosophical/theological roots of his work than some of his readers might be, and I recognize that I might have otherwise criticized him for leaving us hanging if he didn’t take the time to unfold how he developed his ideas.

So, the end felt anti-climactic and wound down. But there are other things too that I would warn people of before they read it. He refers to controlling one’s feelings as “slave-owning” (couldn’t he have used employee management or dog-training?) and he was entirely unapologetic about the slave-owning metaphor, riding it hard without even a nod towards the relatively recent struggle of civil rights; he briefly mentions a few times that he condones open marriage to some degree; he believes in psychic healing; and he is intrigued with a fanciful version of Jung’s synchronicity. But in spite of all this, I still consider him to be eminently respectful of the tension between science and religion, and that is a tonic to find in his field of typically aggressive anti-religion and a reductionist view of humanity and a purpose to our existence. He’s a brave psychologist, and his openness to certain ideas, however disagreeable to me, still seems like an honest result of his personal best of reason and love, not a sloppy acceptance of novel psychology.

For me, the first 150 pages were worth the read, and I’ve already purchased another copy for a friend to benefit from the thoughts contained in the first part alone. For the rest of you, check your local Goodwill—I’m sure they have a few copies.

The book opens with the words "Life is difficult." Once you accept that, it becomes a lot easier!

But most of us don't accept that. We think if we do things the right way, or if other people would, then eventually life would become easier. Our material needs will be met, love will bloom forever, bad things won't happen to us, and life will unfold according to our individual needs and wishes.

Guess again. If you're constantly trying hard and finding life to be a major disappointment, you may find comfort and practical help in the reading and re-reading of this book.

Peck writes in an easy to read, easy to understand manner, writing of his life and that of many of his own patients. He begins with a section on Discipline; the next is on Love; then Growth and Religion; closing (how appropriately) with Grace.

When first I read this, in my mid-twenties, (living life in what one of my 'friends' called Life in the Breakdown Lane) the sections didn't look like they'd offer anything to help me. Discipline was something I wanted to act out against, not find solace in. The section on Love, I was disappointed to find, did NOT provide any instructions on how to find a knight on a white horse. Growth and Religion seemed some kind of a paradox to me, and I was sure that Grace was nothing more than a name I wished I had.

But within those Sections I have again and again(at different levels) found peace of mind through solutions that at first I didn't fully understand, but came to believe in -- for anyone looking for help in improving their lives, from a non-dogmatic, non-fundamentalist point of view, I'd strongly recommend this book.

Read it, learn from it, and just as happens to the bunny in the children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit, you'll find yourself becoming more alive, and more 'real.'

I'd also encourage the reading of Sheldon Kopp's "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him" and (if you're looking for some comic relief, always good when stressed) watch "Groundhog Day."

This is truly a gem of a book (though I haven't liked many others of his).

⚫️”Kai jums reikia kito žmogaus tam, kad pats išgyventumėte, jūs parazituojate šio asmens sąskaita.”

⚫️”Tikroji meilė nėra mus užvaldantis jausmas. Ji yra įsipareigojimas ir apgalvotas sprendimas.”

⚫️”Vienintelis tikras saugumas gyvenime yra mėgavimasis gyvenimo nesaugumu.”

What I liked:
1) There are a lot of great content about importance of discipline, balance, constructive separation and geniun love in this book. I recommend this book to couples and people who want happiness and sucess in longterm relationships.
2) I found this book very practical and applicable to daily life. Full of suggestions that can be small starts but over time can make huge difference in our lives.
3) Unlike many other books about spiritual growth, this book doesn't exaggerate or downplay important factors and shows that there are many factors to consider.
4)There is no shortcut to growth, instead time, dedication, discipline and effort is needed to build a good life. Simply there is no one big secret to know, or only one rule to follow.

What I did not like:
I think this book need a revision: 1) Some paragraphs and examples are very long.
2) Adding subcategories would make it easier for reader to follow and revert back and reference when needed

The Timeless Game of Problems


"What comes to break you was sent to make you."

Problems belong to mankind since Adam and Eve. They stick to us as invisible organs and have no intention to leave. Like brain ticks, they keep pestering our lives infecting our peace!

But where would we be without our hideous tedious problems?! Aren’t they the indispensable tools that lead us straight to the core of our potential?! The alarm-Clocks of our dormant abilities?!

So why don’t we gratefully embrace them instead of thoroughly hate them?!
Shouldn’t we welcome our precious obnoxious problems with a happy smile instead of a disgusted sneer?!

At its core problems are a challenge — an endless game we shall be playing till death takes us apart...

Dealing with problems in a positive way would make a hell of a difference in human lives!
That’s why we should all read this book — it will turn us into much better problem solvers

The path to spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning.

I'm not sure I can add much to the reviews already done on this book and I have mixed feelings about it. I must have bought it at the height of it's popularity, started it ( I see underlining in the early chapters) but set it aside for 40 years! I think how much this resonates with you has to be a function of where you are in life. I found the bulk of the book filled with lessons and insights I have already learned (w/o the help of a therapist, thank you very much) and was thinking this paperback was going into the trash after I was done, but the last section saved the day for me and I will pass it on.

So the lessons about life's difficulties and strategies to help one grow and mature from those challenges are pretty standard at this point in time (I think). Peck does wrap everything in not only working on one's mental health but also posits how those same tools help one achieve spiritual growth. Both take work and requires discipline. Peck believes the energy to take on this work comes from love. Love was defined by Peck as " the will to extend one's self for the purpose of one's own or another's spiritual growth." And the impediment to the work that is necessary is laziness, in all it's forms.

I was fascinated with the last section as the focus really centers on concepts about the unconscious mind and spiritual growth. I don't necessarily agree with everything but it is thought provoking, which I always think is a good thing.

One sentence that popped out for me that reminded me of a beloved work about spiritual growth Hannah Hurnard's Hinds' Feet on High Places and the MC Little Much Afraid Even when we truly understand these matters, the journey of spiritual growth is still so lonely and difficult that we are often discouraged

It gets four stars for the simple truth of the opening lines:

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."

It amazes me how much damage I have done by expecting life to be something other than difficult and how much easier my life is when I accept that it is difficult and that I will be uncomfortable.

One of my favorite lines from a movie is when Jack Nicholson's character, Melvin Udall in, "As Good As It Gets" says to Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man."

My lovely wife does that for me, and she introduced me to this book, which helped me understand love so much more profoundly than I ever had before! I felt like I'd been a Flatlander suddenly introduced to a third developmental dimension. In fact, I compare it in my mind to the paradox of trying to describe an orgasm to one who never has. O came away from reading this book with a very profound sense of, "Ah-ha!"

قبل أن أنتهي من قراءة هذا الكتاب تمامًا، قمت بإهداء نسختين لأشخاص عزيزين. استعنت به كأحد المراجع الرئيسية في كتابي وهم الإنجاز: كيف يتحرك العامة وماذا يحفزهم.

فِهم الإنسان واستيعابه لخريطته في الحياة شيء شيء أكثر من ضروري. وهو ما يحاول أن يعلمك إياه. يعتقد بيك أن الكسل هو الدافع الأكبر لعدم نمو الإنسان، فهو كسول في العمل، وهو كسول في عدم رغبته أو استعداده لتقبل الأمور الجديدة والأفكار غير المألوفة، يضع الكسل كأحد الشخصيتين اللتين في داخل كل إنسان، وغالبًا هي من تفوز على الأخرى.

كتاب استثنائي في تفاصيله، وعميق جدًا

I’m seriously not sure how I failed to see the great life wisdom this book contains (upon my first reading many years ago.)

In spite of the book’s overwhelming success and acclaim, I remember curiously not feeling it myself. I had a vague sense of it being dry and lifeless material, and it seemed void of any helpful insights for me at that time of my life.
Reading it now, I’m overwhelmed with its amazing insight and wisdom. The book hasn’t changed. Clearly, at the time of my first reading, this student was not ready for the teacher to appear.
Upon reflection, I must ask myself:
At a a younger age, was I annoyed that this book offered no quick fixes, no shortcuts, no avoiding the necessary pain that comes with change and personal growth? I have to answer most definitely, yet compassionately, for my much younger self, unfortunately, Yes! All evidence points to the fact I was seeking to travel an easy path, without paying my dues, on a road I soon found to be leading Nowhere, fast.
In summary, IT WAS ME, NOT YOU,
The Road Less Traveled, ❤️
M. Scott Peck. ⭐️

The author touches on several topics that are polarizing. As such, I can understand the need to point out that the author’s approach has flaws. But if you can move past your initial “political” reaction to some of his comments, you’ll find the book full of powerful truths. The most powerful of which is that we have the capacity to become like God (though I don’t know that the author would agree to my literal interpretation of his words).