As stated earlier I will be bringing some notes on books I read. This will be a part of a review of my own notes in the book, and meant to give a really short breakdown, of the books content. Like a little delicious appetizer for people who hasn’t read it, and a reminder for myself about the biggest takeaways.

First of, as the title reveals; The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

The book has 4 main parts: Discipline, Love, Growth and Religion, Grace.

Measured by the amount of marks I made; then the two first parts are the best. Not to say that the last two are uninteresting, because they are not. It is more a testament to the quality of the first two chapters.

If you’ve ever read The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship: A Toltec Wisdom Book, from which I have earlier quoted the story of “The magical kitchen”; then the part, in this book, about Love; will ring very true to the same base-philosophies.

The first mark I made in this book was the following:

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?

This is a very good introduction to what this book is all about. It gets rather deep in psychotherapy at some points, which I was not expecting, but actually found quite interesting. When reading some parts, I remember thinking that every parent should read this book. It really raises some important questions, as to how we raise our children.

The above quote also reminds me about a favorite quote of mine, from Epictetus:

Man is troubled, not by events, but by the meaning which he gives them.

M. Scott Peck, the author of The Road Less Traveled, talks about how important it is to experience suffering, in order to grow mentally. Most psychological problems occur(and grow) because people do not want to experience the pain of working through them. Instead they do all they can to avoid them, and thereby builds more and more internal pressure.

In order to grow we have to face the problems and work through them, no matter how painful they may be. This is such a key point in the book!

Another point that has stayed with me, here a couple of months after I finished it, is the concept of people’s internal maps. This map can, for some people, consist primarily of their religion and however this religion tells them to see the world. But even atheists has this internal map which they build upon throughout their lives. The hard part about having this internal map is of course if we are forced to revise the map. Even small revisions can be painful. But the key point is to always do these revisions, always be prepared to change the way you see the world. Greet the world with curiosity and acceptance, always being prepared to change what you already thought was right to something else. Accept that we never know the entire truth, so don’t try to make the world fit your map – fit your map to the world.

There are so many brilliant quotes, sayings and paragraphs in this book, that I could make several pages worth of words to live by. But luckily I have the book, and can at anytime open it, and browse through my highlighted sections. I would really recommend you to get it as well. If you have any interest in human psychology, your own ability to grow or in any way how your mind works; then this is a book for you.