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Road Less Travelled is a book with simple but informative content that helps to enlighten its readers in many ways. This bestseller is written by Dr. M. Scott Peck who is a registered psychiatrist, hence most of his points were broadened by various experiences he had with his patients as well as his personal experience with his parents and kids. Dr. Peck involved psychiatric terms and shared various mind theories that he learned from his education that made the book more interesting to read.

The book’s primary goal is to guide its readers obtain optimum spiritual and mental growth. This can be used to gauge if we are living life to its fullest. The book is divided into four main parts which he considers to be the significant factor in our spiritual growth. In this review, I would like to focus on the section which I though was the most interesting – the section about Discipline. Right at the very start of the chapter, Dr. Peck stated the classic statement that Life was difficult. Life as we know it has countless problems hence we tend to procrastinate to avoid the pain. Nevertheless, with full discipline one can solve the problems in life. By learning to discipline ourselves is equivalent to learning to suffer and grow. Hence we should face the pain, learn and grow. Dr. Peck mentioned four techniques that are considered discipline.

The first method is by Delaying of Gratification. This is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing pain first and getting it over with. It’s as simple as thinking that it is more of a fulfilment if you have worked for it with everything you got instead of looking for an easy way out. The best example used by Dr. Peck was the about the cake and frosting where we should first eat the cake before the frosting to make it taste better. The bottom line is we should formulate well-though of solutions first instead of taking immediate solutions. A more fitting example of the application of this concept is as follows: after graduating with a Master’s degree, one can most likely find a good paying job but if one continues with a PhD and even a PostDoc, he/she may have a brighter and more rewarding future ahead of him/her.

The second method is the Acceptance of Responsibility. Here, Dr. Peck discussed two types of disorders commonly though the same but actually are two distinct types: neurotic and those who have character disorder. Neurotic are willing but very conscious of there responsibility. These types of people think too much of what they should do hence they struggle. People with character disorder on the other hand neglect they have responsibilities and tend to blame others from their mistakes. What everybody should put in to mind according to Dr. Peck is that life is a series of personal choices. We should not be bothered by the wrong decisions that we have made in the past since it is part of learning and growing. We have to use our freedom and accept the consequence that we have made. In research, our previous mistakes like experiments that failed should not hold us back from doing things we think is right but we are hesistant to do because of the fear of committing the mistake again. We should be willing to take the responsibility of making up for our mistakes and finding the solutions to problems we’ve encountered before. This, I believe, is a valuable attitude in order to attain success in research work.

The third method is Dedication to Truth. This part points out that we should not ignore the changing reality. We should avoid Transference which is an active clinging to an outmoded view of reality. An example is that there may be beliefs that were appropriate during our childhood that are completely unnecessary during adulthood. A life of total dedication to the truth is a life of willingness to be personally challenged.

The last method is Balancing. This part is like synchronizing the previous three methods mentioned, that we should learn to let go a part of one's self to give room for a new and better self. Simply stated, we should continue to grow and continue to change in the process. We should take good judgement on responsibilities to be taken and when truth must be withheld.

I am quite fascinated by his approach on the science of psychology and his analysis on the human mind. While I do not agree with all the ideas presented by Dr. Peck, most of what he wrote are valuable and are indeed eye-opening. I highly recommend this book to everyone since it will renew the way we think and the way we look into things. We should be more aware of what life is all about and how we could grow to attain inner tranquillity within ourselves. It is our choice if we lay back, go with the flow and ignore life’s blessing or stand up, take chances and seek change. It is our choice if we should take the road less travelled or not.