The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled

The book, The Road Less Traveled, written by M. Scott Peck, M.D. is the book I choose for my book report. It is a very interesting book concerning the way people act and how we deal with problems. The book contains four main sections, and each section is divided up into different categories relating to the section. The four sections in order are; discipline, love, growth, and grace. M. Scott Peck is a psychiatrist in a private practice in Connecticut. He uses many real life stories as examples of different things in his book.

The first main section of the book is Discipline. The author breaks discipline down into various categories like: problems, responsibility, balancing, and problem solving, plus some other ones. Dr. Peck starts off the book by saying that life is difficult. Realizing that life is difficult is one way to cope with life. Thinking things through is a main concern of Dr. Peck. With problems and problem solving he tells us to stand back and think for a minute. Only when we do that can we really solve our problems that life deals us. Being hasty and making quick decisions is a pet peeve of Dr. Peck. "Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing" (15).

The second section of the book is Love. Dr. Peck makes it very clear at the beginning of the section that there is no one satisfactory definition of love. "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth" (82), is how the doctor defines love. In this section the doctor talks about falling in love, dependency, self sacrifice, and risks of love. You need a lot of courage to take the risk of love. There are many risks one takes when they decide to put their love into someone. The risk of loss plays an important role in deciding to pursue love for someone. People are worried about what love will do to their lives. They make important decisions in life when love enters the picture. Commitment is the foundation to every loving relationship. Many people fall in love but don't want to make the commitment to that person, therefore the relationship will not workout. A mystery about love that Dr. Peck cannot answer is where love comes from.

Growth and Religion is the next set of chapters found in Dr. Peck's book. "Among the members of the human race there exists an extraordinary variability in the breadth and sophistication of our understanding of what life is all about. This understanding is our religion" (185). Dr. Peck goes on to say that everyone has a religion, and that is very important to have. Religion does not necessarily deal with people's beliefs in God and other higher beings. Religion is how an individual views the world. Dr. Peck remarks that it's ironic that two people can have totally different views of the world, yet be in the same religious denomination. That is his reason for saying that religion is people's views of life.

Dr. Peck starts the section of grace by talking about the miracle of health. He started this final section with the song "Amazing Grace", written by John Newton. He talks about the amazement, and how something is amazing when it defies "natural law". He says