The Road Less Traveled - An Adventurous Road For The Daring

Ever felt like you were on the wrong path? Want to go on a new journey?
Perhaps it might interest you to take a road less traveled.

With sales of more than seven million copies in the US and Canada, and translations into more than 23 languages, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, made publishing history, with more than ten years on the NY Times bestseller list.

This is a book filled with such profound wisdom and insights but I rarely hear it mentioned so let's put that to rest today.

1. Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost.

I am emotionally sick if I resist what is so. I am emotionally healthy when I accept "what is" because "it is."

2. The quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.

Life is happening for me not to me. I am creating the world that I see. My pain arises when I believe that you have done something to me and subsides when I realize I've done it to myself. 100% of my pain is self-inflicted. I am not a victim of the world that I see.

3. By far the most important form of attention we can give our loved ones is listening... True listening is love in action.

We all have equal wisdom. When I invoke a listening practice I get the opportunity to really hear what you're saying - now that's some loving sh*t!

4. Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.

I am a great image maker. Unfortunately I don't realize that my imagination is laced with my own biases and prejudices. Am I really seeing things as they really are or seeing things that are not there? This PROFOUND tendency is very strong and seductive.

5. Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.

In order to solve the problem I first have to recognize what the problem is. My problems don't vanish because I decided to sweep them under the rug. My problems love to hide in the most unlikely places - houses, cars, job titles, special love relationships, money, and work.

6. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.

72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the of these murder suicides are female. if I can't have you - nobody will.

7. Integrity is never painless.

Doing the right thing always feels good.
Saying a nice thing always feels good.
Using honey works only but 100% of the time.

8. The best decision-makers are those who are willing to suffer the most over their decisions but still retain their ability to be decisive.

When you decide to be a purple cow don't be surprised if all the brown cows start speaking negatively about you.(shhh..they are really speaking about themselves and projecting it onto you but that's another idea list) Hold onto your purpleness anyway.

9. Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church.

What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture

Costumes and masks are not just for Halloween. Most things are not as they appear to be. It's all smoke and mirrors - have you noticed?

10. Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity.

If ever I think somebody else is the problem - I'm insane.
Insanity is expecting others to change so that I can be happy.

11. The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.

For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

There must be a better way.

12. Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.

Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

If I don't believe that I am bigger than my problems there's little to no hope for me.

13. Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault.

Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.

We love to project and rather than changing how we see the world (what we projecting moment to moment) we'd much rather walk up to the screen and try to change what's on the screen.

14. You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

Two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

15. If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything.

If I really knew the complete Truth I wouldn't have a need to be here.

16. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

Little to no growth can occur in the known. The unknown is the juiciest and sweetest part. Wouldn't you agree?

17. I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

Perhaps it's time that we redefine what love is which has not as much to do with the physical, emotional, and mental as we believe. Spiritual growth is the headliner and star of the show.....the others are okay but highly unstable.

18. Share our similarities, celebrate our differences

We're all one. Separation is an illusion. Google it!

Poweroftruth