THIS BOOK DESERVES A MILLION STARS. I literally just finished it so I prob should not be doing a review just yet - to let it all digest BUT idc lol where do I even begin? The most important book I have ever read probably. My life has already changed immensely while reading it. I started to get chills and tear up at the enormity of the knowledge in this book. A gift!! A book for EVERY human being. It was like going to therapy - made me reflect deeply about my life and others and so therefore took me longer than most books do. If I had enough money I would gift this book to everyone...

I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to open their eyes up to what love truly is, and how to give that love to yourself as well as those around you. I already know I will be re-reading in the future as I feel necessary.

The author has delved deep into, with profound insights, on what really causes unhappiness in our life. He asserts that it is precisely in avoiding our problems and hurdles that we suffer in our life; it is the pain and suffering caused by difficulties in life that we have to meet in order to grow mentally and spiritually. We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.


The following were the key-takeaways:

* 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.

* Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.

* A person who has the ability to delay gratification has the key to psychological maturity, whereas impulsiveness is a mental habit that, in denying opportunities to experience pain, creates neuroses.

* Most large problems we have are the result of not facing up to earlier, smaller problems, of failing to be 'dedicated to the truth'. The great mistake most people make is believing that problems will go away of their own accord.

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!"

For anyone who has issues....need I say more? The first 2/3 of this book (I didn't care for the last 1/3 at all when he gets into religion) is really thoughtful and helpful when it comes to sorting out your "issues". Issues with family, issues dealing with your strengths/weaknesses and habits, and more. I re-read this often, as every time I read it, I seem to get a different answer/lesson that fits my concerns.

This book has stayed with me, and helped a great deal with overcoming aspects of my life that I have striggled with.

I can't believe I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. I listened to the audio and it it came across as "stiff". So the narration didn't match up to the message. This more repetitive than I like and it had a dated feel to it, as well. I think during this past year, I've read better books on the subject, so maybe this book suffers by comparison.

This was a great teaching on values and love. A good book for us all to read in this time of warand strife in our world. Please read, enjoy and Be Blessed.

Ova knjiga je dokaz zasto toliko volim vlastitu psihoterapiju i psihoterapeutkinju

The girl who started this book on New Years, in hopes of starting the year off on the right foot with some intellectual stimulation, is not the same girl who finished it today. Highly recommended to everybody, everywhere. The chapters are short and sweet, the writing is efficient, almost poetic, and the ideas are communicated really well.

Published in 1978, this book is wayyy ahead of it's time. He even used the word vibes! M. Scott Peck is one of the only educated individuals I've ever encountered who has put into words a concept that I thought was clear but that confuses people all the time and has for the longest time—that pertaining to the dichotomy of religion and science. I know what Freud said about it. I think his views are really interesting. They happen not to be in line with mine, and obv that's okay. I've always believed that science and "religion," in the traditional sense (Peck has other things to say about it), can and should co-exist, that they are both reflections of the same universe and reality and are by no means mutually exclusive. That there is evidence in what we don't understand (the unconscious, serendipity, health, etc, all covered in this book) of a higher being, and science also has it's basis in the same reality.

My favourite section was that on love. I never thought of love like that. Peck defines it as the will to cultivate the spiritual growth of another person. In everyday life, we generally put passive-dependency and forms of selfishness and ownership of another person under this wide umbrella labelled love. Love, according to Peck, is really a miniscule portion of what most people think it is. Love should feel liberating, not suffocating. Came as a shock to me, but then I realized, of course! Why would it be anything else?

I'm glad this book put so much emphasis on the upbringing of individuals and the notion of maturity, emotional adulthood, resulting from taking one's life into one's own hands.

So yeah. This book has helped clarify a lot of unorganized thoughts I've had in my own life, putting them into intelligent and coherent words while adding so much insight I don't know if I would have ever gleaned elsewhere. The Road Less Travelled is now my favourite nonfiction book to exist. And I will never ever stop forcing all the people who surround me to read it.

Read it.

3.75

Đọc lại lần 02 vào 2024 sau 6 năm. Vẫn thấy sách có nhiều góc nhìn hay về tình yêu, sự trưởng thành. Nhưng cũng thấy được nhiều vấn đề về lập luận, cách giải quyết vấn đề.
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Cuốn này được dịch ra tiếng Việt là con đường chẳng mấy ai đi vào năm 2004, một cuốn sach hay và tuyệt vời đến thế nhưng mình lại không hề biết tới sự xuất hiện của nó. 11 năm liền nằm trong bestseller của new york time.

Nếu bạn là một người yêu thích lĩnh vực tâm lí học, không nên bỏ qua cuốn sách này. Đây là cuốn sách đưa ra rất nhiều quan điểm và phân tích hay để bạn giúp bạn trưởng thành về mặt tâm trí, tinh thần và cả trong tình yêu nữa.

Đọc xong cuốn này mình tin là các bạn sẽ bớt ham muốn, bớt thích những thứ hào nhoáng xa hoa mà sẽ tập trung vào những gì cốt lõi nhất, đó là tình yêu chứ không phải sự ràng buộc, đó là học cách yêu chứ không phải phụ thuộc vào người yêu của mình. Bạn cũng sẽ hiểu rằng chịu trách nhiệm cho cuộc sống của chính mình, và duy trì trạng thái cuộc sống cân bằng là những điều vô giá để vượt qua được những thử thách lớn trong cuộc sống

Ngoài ra, cuốn sách rất thích hợp với những bạn có sự quan tâm đến sự phát triển về tinh thần và con đường tâm linh. Một cuốn sách hay và rất đáng đọc, tiếc là nó đã chìm nghỉm ở VN mất rồi.

Mình viết review những cuốn sách khác tại blog nhỏ này http://ahapyman.com

This book has a very high insight-to-text ratio (or interesting propositions).

Here are some of my favorite points made in the book:

1) The tendency to avoid problems is the psychological basis of all mental illnesses—"neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering."
2) Four tools for mental health discipline: delayed gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balance.
3) Most people can solve most problems if they give them enough time.
4) Most of our biggest problems in life come from avoiding problems and hoping they will go away—delaying gratification is choosing to suffer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification under the hope that future suffering will not be necessary.
5) A life of dedication to truth means a constant willingness to be challenged
6) The best decision-makers are those who are willing to suffer the most over the decisions while retaining the capacity to be decisive.
7) Love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing another's spiritual growth—real love is often a choice to act lovingly when the feeling of love is lacking.
8) When you fall out of love, your limits snap right back to where they were, but when you consciously love people with effort, you expand yourself
9) A true acceptance of you and your partners' own individuality is the only basis for real love
10) To fail to confront when it is required is a passive failure to love
11) Spiritual growth requires that we actively seek the threatening and unfamiliar. The path to holiness requires questioning everything.
12) Most of us are not fully aware of our own worldviews and the uniqueness of the experience from which they are derived.
13) Evil is laziness carried to its extreme—the evil actively avoid to extend themselves, doing anything to escape the discomfort of spiritual growth

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