Book Review
"The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Tradition Values and Spiritual Growth".
Author: M. Scott Peck
Year: 1985
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York
In his book, M Scott Peck addresses critical issues of life, love and facing and resolving our problems. He begins the book with a line that jolts the reader even at first glance. It reads "life is difficult". I thought "how true". This statement created a catalyst for me wanting to read further. The book is written in a systematic way and addresses a number of issues we face as individuals. The first chapter speaks intensively about discipline and the lack there of and how becoming better disciplined we can enhance our lives. The greater points of this chapter will be dealt with later in this paper.
The second chapter, and rightly so, speaks of love for example agape, phillo and eros.
English: An American Lady butterfly against a clou...
My wife reading in bed. And it wasn't because she ...
English: 1857 lithograph by Armand Gautier, showin...I believe there can be no discipline without love, and no love without discipline. Both are enjoined and go hand in hand. For the purpose of this paper only these two chapters will be dealt with.
Peck describes discipline as "the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems". He makes the point that without discipline we can solve nothing and in contrast discipline enables us to solve the most complex problems. He goes on to state that this 'lack of discipline' has caused people generally to avoid problems, maybe in an effort to let them go away rather than dealing with them. This (avoiding) leads to one becoming frustrated, sad, lonely, guilty or even angry. This Scott feels is the "primary basis of all human mental illness. This would mean, if accepted as true, all of us humans suffer for some mental defect with...