What a great title for a book to bring with you while travelling, huh? Especially if you're travelling metaphorically as well as physically.
As usual I will tell you only little about what's in the book (you can find summaries or proper reviews online), but rather what I learned from it, what it had to say to me.
Being this book written in 1973 and highly focusing on psychoanalysis, some concepts might be a bit old. The author, M. Scott Peck tends to give a lot of (probably too much) importance to the parents influence on someone's personality. I would recommend to read just before or after it James Hillman's The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
to balance off this concepts, and discover that you can be whoever you want to be despite the way you were brought up. But apart from that definitely an eye-opener.
Life is difficult is one of the opening concepts. Which is great. Really. Once you accept that life is difficult and that as a consequence you have to work hard to get where you want to go, or be what you want to be, you will no longer complain that things are “not fair”. That's just the way life is. Working on the various issues you might have in your life is what will give you fulfillment. I've found similar concept in Authentic Happiness (on top of a mountain is freezing cold, and the mountaineer is struggling, even risking his life. But do you think he'd rather be on a couch in the warmth of his house? There's no other place the mountaineer would rather be!) and in Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (There's no way to happiness, happiness is the way!).Discipline, and related techniques like delaying immediate gratification (in view of a bigger gratification at a later stage) are the ways to make sure your efforts are toward growing and developing spiritually.
Love is analysed in great detail: real love is not infatuation or desire, but it's hard work too. A huge amount of efforts is required to make sure we are truly loving (and loved), and that means extending one's ego boundaries to include another, and spiritually nurturing that person.
Moreover in order to reach spiritual health (happiness?) we need to constantly redefine our maps. Our maps are how we see and navigate the world. They are created by us, but need to be always put in discussion and redefined, even if that is, again, hard work. I guess that's what in modern corporate terms is called as the infamous and over used “stretch out of the comfort zone”.
The Road Less Travelled made me realize that maybe I took an easy path deciding to go travelling. I wasn't too happy were I was, I didn't really know what I wanted and I started travelling looking for answers. Maybe the thing to do was to remain were I was and work on the issues that I didn't like. Hard work, efforts and discipline to create a better reality for myself and reach the goal of spiritual health.
I've always been terrible at delaying gratification (always Play first then Work, what if I die meanwhile?) but maybe I've missed greater gratifications. And maybe my travels around the world are a way to run away from discipline and have an immediate gratification.
But then, isn't my travelling a way to deal with issues and finding answers? After all is not really an holiday at all, travelling on my own with my thoughts and my books.
I think I'm getting ready to stop and work on creating my new fulfilling life. After all applying my old philosophy, if this trip was Play, it is time for Work now, isn't it?
Part of Books Travelling with Me Section. Read my personal disclaimer and find out about more books there.
