The journey of spiritual growth is a long one.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life growth change spirituality perfectionism self-improvement patience life-long learning

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.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life difficulties challenges pain obstacles problems truth acceptance perspective struggles illness disability problems adversity inner peace

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life challenges difficulties obstacles problems focus perspective action

Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life problems obstacles challenges difficulties discipline will action character growth change

...it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually...It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: problems obstacles challenges difficulties pain meaning life wisdom success failure courage growth spirituality

What are these tools, these techniques of suffering, these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline? There are four: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: pain change growth discipline gratification responsibility integrity truth honesty balance wisdom learning obstacles challenges problems

I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: spirituality thinking thought growth change

It seems we may live in a society that has almost forgotten the glory of what it means to be human. We are in need of healing.
M. Scott Peck A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Categories: humanity meaning purpose life spirituality sin society community mistakes failures

The battle to heal human evil always begins at home. And self-purification will always be our greatest weapon.
M. Scott Peck People of the Lie
Categories: evil badness sin depravity change growth spirituality healing insanity badness cruelty madness crime lust greed change self-awareness responsibility

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: pain procrastination pleasure joy enjoyment

If a child sees his parents day in and day out behaving with self-discipline, restraint, dignity and a capacity to order their own lives, then the child will come to feel in the deepest fibers of his being that this is the way to live. If a child sees his parents day in and day out living without self-restraint or self-discipline, then he will come in the deepest fibers of being to believe that that is the way to live.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: parenting setting an example raising children childrearing

Ultimately love is everything.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: love relationships self-control self-discipline self-worth self-esteem parenting

When we love something it is of value to us, and when something is of value to us we spend time with it, time enjoying it and time taking care of it.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: love relationships friendships priorities balance marriage parenting time planning

The feeling of being valuable--"I am a valuable person"--is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline...because when one considers oneself valuable one will take care of onself in all ways that are necessary. Self-discipline is self-caring.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: self-discipline self-worth self-esteem values priorities balance overeating sins of the flesh self-control

Life is complex.
Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: life learning spirituality growth self-improvement direction meaning easy answers difficulties problems challenges

I hope that you will abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience--to appreciate the fact that life is complex.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: problems challenges difficulties life living growth

I believe it would be considerably healthier for us to dare to live without a reason for many things than with reasons that are simplistic.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: reason understanding spirituality mystery

Ordinary life, our earthly existence, is often dull. Romance is exciting. Our moments of romance are those when a little bit of heaven seems, thank God, to impinge, to intrude upon our daily lives. I learn for such moments. It is because I yearn for them so much that I generally feel this earth is not my home. The yearning is particularly intense when I am bored for any length of time. I want to go home.
Heaven is the home of God. For years I have known that my only real romance is with God. I want to be with God. I want to be in his or her arms where I belong, and I hope I shall be when I die. But I am not ready to go home yet, and God does not come to me often. Certainly never on demand. She has Her own schedule. Her timing is not my timing, and I must content myself with that. I am not so good at being content, however, that I do not look forward to substitutes, even if they be but shadows of the real thing...
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: romance mystical ecstasy mysticism love

An adventure is going into the unknown. If you know exactly where you are going, exactly how you will get there, and exactly what you will see along the way, it is not an adventure... Because they involve the unknown, adventures are inherently dangerous to a greater or lesser degree. Yet it is also only from adventures and their newness that we learn. 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.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: risk courage learning growth challenge

Simply, health is an ongoing process, often painful, of an organism becoming the most--the best--it can be. And disease is anything, sometimes painful, often painless, that interferes with the process of health.
M. Scott Peck A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Categories: wellness bad habits growth self-improvement

The understanding of basic reality is never something we achieve; it is only something that can be approached. And, in fact, the closer we approach it the more we realize we do not understand--the more we stand in awe of its mystery.
M. Scott Peck People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Categories: reality life mystery

Love is the free exercise of choice.
M. Scott Peck Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth
Categories: love choice relationships marriage commitment

All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up--that growing is an ever ongoing process.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: growth maturity self-improvement

Most people think that courage is the absence of fear. The absence of fear is not courage; the absence of fear is some kind of brain damage. Courage is the capacity to go ahead in spite of the fear, or in spite of the pain. When you do that, you will find that overcoming that fear will not only make you stronger but will be a big step forward toward maturity.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: courage strength bravery fear pain

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.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: personal growth maturity attitude

I define love thus: the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
M. Scott Peck Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth
Categories: love sacrifice relationships marriage parenting

Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present.
M. Scott Peck Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth
Categories: love relationships marriage parenting

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.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
Categories: problems difficulties growth self-improvement self-awareness

...blame always begins with anger.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: blame responsibility anger emotions

For whatever reasons, that which might be holy always draws us.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: spirituality soul mystery

Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's need to grow.
M. Scott Peck Categories: spirituality growth self-improvement self-awareness pride vanity

The process of forgiveness -- indeed the chief reason for forgiveness -- is selfish. The reason to forgive others is not for their sake. They are not likely to know that they need to be forgiven. They're not likely to remember their offense. They are likely to say, "You just made that up." They may even be dead. The reason to forgive is for our own sake. For our own health. Because beyond that point needed for healing, if we hold on to our anger, we stop growing and our souls begin to shrivel.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: forgiving restoration healing growth

Some Catholics have a concept I very much admire: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It suggests that every moment of our lives is sacred, and that we should make of each moment a sacrament. Were we to do this we would think of the entire world as diffused with holiness. Wherever we might be would be a holy place for us, and we would see the holy, even sainthood, in everyone we encounter.
M. Scott Peck In Search of Stones
Categories: holiness present awareness spirituality