“The road less travelled” is a book by M Scott Peck. It is a great book to read as it contains a wealth of information. Here is my review of the book:
- Since it is based on the experiences of MR Peck as a psychologist, it is therefore not a fantasy book talking about someone’s wild imagination. It is on the contrary an extrapolation of the day-to-day experiences and analysis of someone who is well suited to write this book.
- As humans, we tend to develop a dependency on other people, be it the parents, the wife or husband, the children etc and this hinders our spiritual growth as well of the people we love because our concept of love is restricted by our reluctance to find the true meaning of love. We are blinded by the ideology that loving is making the other person at all times even if that means we, ourselves, have to be sad in doing so. For example, if a child was to cry endlessly to get his parents to buy sweets for him although he’s had one too many that day, would we call it ‘love’ if the parents decided to succumb to the child’s desires? Although it hurts to see our own child cry and suffer, sometimes it is the end result that we are more interested in rather than the immediate ones. The child may not know what’s right or wrong for him but the parents must know and the sooner the child is educated to be responsible, the better it is.
- Numerous characters are described in this book to show how and why people have problems. Sometimes these people are not able to deal with the problems themselves and seek the help of a psychologist and the latter will analyse the situation and try to find the root of the problem. Most problems are to do with how we’ve been brought up, what sort of education we’ve been having both at home and at school and what sort of conception we have about the world.
- I personally found the book very deep and boring initially as nothing which was said made much sense but eventually you get to see things fall into place and you start telling yourself, “yeh, that’s true what he is saying!”. However the end of the book was not too appealing for me as it the personal opinion of Mr Peck to involve grace aka the divine spirit into each and every aspect of our life seems and the extent he goes to explain it seems quite bizarre to me.
Nevertheless, if you have the change, then do read this piece of beauty and it will definitely enlighten your journey to finding yourself.