FREE ESSAY ON LOVE IN THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

LOVE IN THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Love In The Road Less Traveled
Scott Peck's view of love in The Road Less Traveled is a correction to what he thought
everyone else thought love was. This paper will be an explanation of Peck's beliefs about
love, a contrasting view on love, and my personal knowledge of Peck's beliefs. 
Peck had a very pessimistic and, at times, a contradicting view of what is believed to be
love and introduced that in his section on the definition of love. Peck (1978) believed
Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the
framework of words(page 81). Later on in that same page Peck offers a definition of love
as being The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or
another's personal growth(page 81). He also breaks down his definition into five
comments: First - The definition has a goal or a purpose, Second - The definition given
is a circular process, Third - The definition includes self-love as love for the other,
Fourth - The definition implies effort, and Fifth - The definition implies a will to do
something rather than just a desire. Peck believes that lots of suffering can be avoided
if a person would take the time out to do away with the common misconceptions of love and
came to a more precise meaning of love. 
Peck's section called The Myth of Romantic Love goes deeper into why he believes that
people do not fully understand the meaning of true love. Peck says, …the experience
of falling in love probably must have as one of its characteristics the illusion that the
experience will last forever(page 91). He blames our mentality of this fairy tale love on
society. In this section Peck also discusses the myth that there is one man for every one
woman and vice versa. When a couple falls out of love, …then it is clear that a
dreadful mistake was made, we misread the stars, we did not hook up with our one and only
perfect match, what we thought was love was not real or true love, and nothing can be
done about the situation except to live unhappily ever after or get divorced (page 91).
Peck believes that couples that live by this type of mentality prize togetherness and see
it as a sign of a healthy marriage but in actuality it is not. Mythical love, as Peck
calls it, may be a trick in order for the continuation of the human race. This type of
love is often known as dependent. 
Dependency, Peck believes, is what people mistake for love. Examples of dependency are
when a person: says, I can't live without this person because I love them so much, or,
when a person contemplates suicide because of the loss of a love. Peck defines dependency
as, …the inability to experience wholeness or to function adequately without the
certainty that one is being actively cared for by another(page 98). Peck compares
dependency to the feeling that all humans have to be babied. Peck believes: All of us
have the desire to be babied, to be nurtured without effort on our parts…(page 99).
Dependency can even be linked to the most common disorder called passive dependent
personality disorder. This disorder is common in people always searching for love. These
types of people never feel quite whole and don't tolerate loneliness well. When they
finally do fall in love, they become so dependent upon that other person that they cannot
even imagine living without them. A woman will even unlearn driving in order to become
more dependent upon her husband as a means of transportation. A passive dependent
marriage can never be considered genuine love or even healthy, but to a passive
dependent, it is considered healthy and secure. Dependency can be blamed on the role, or
rather absence of, the parent. This brings about years of searching for …happiness
and full-fillment(page 105). 
Although Peck makes valid points that love is not the only thing to live for, First
Corinthians disagrees. The Bible verse says, If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all
about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn't
love others, what good would it do?(First Corinthians 13:2-4) 
The verses go on from there each, at the end, stating nothing would be valuable without
love occurring in your life first. Peck, however, has a less romantic view on how
important love really is in life. Peck believes love is important but too much love can
lead to dependency. Peck is actually the opposite of what the Bible is stating. He
believes that a person should first love himself or herself before they can love anyone
else. Dependent people are not ready for the grown up aspects of love: the hurt, the
suffering, or the unhappiness. The only true end of love is spiritual growth or human
evolution(page 106). The Bible believes that love is the one reliable thing in life. A
person is to forsake all other things in the name of love. First Corinthians 13:8 states,
All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on
forever. Peck disagrees with this type of lifestyle. This leads back to the fairy-tale
mentality that if love is there, then everything else will fall into place. This Myth of
Romantic Love is often what lead people to heartache and despair later on in life. These
fairy-tale followers often try to conform their lives to the myth of the fairy-tale.
…they still cling to the myth and attempt to conform their lives to it(page 93). If
one goes through life thinking that love is the end all be all, then nothing else will
matter to them, which would finally bring everything to a crashing halt once love walks
into the picture. Peck thinks a person could truthfully ruin their life by putting
everything on hold for love. 
Scott Peck's rendition of what love is or is not was a thorough look into the society's
mentality on what is believed to be love. He has several opinions on what the
misconceptions of love are and he tries to address them all. 
A topic Peck stressed was that love is also a job. True love does not come easy and has
to be worked on in order for it to be successful. Peck often states that love will not
last forever without it being worked upon. I believe that this statement is true in
certain cases. One such case might be a long-distance relationship. If two people claim
to love each other they try to work out their relationship even though they are not close
to each other physically. 
Also Peck believes people are set in the fairy-tale love mentality. Peck thinks society
is far off in its definition of love because many still believe in the fairy-tale of the
man or woman riding in on the white horse. This type of loving is known as dependent and
is not healthy. It is most commonly found in people searching for love. I agree with
Peck's view on what society believes because many still think there is that one person
out there for them. 
Another point Peck makes is that love will not last forever and it is not a feeling.
However, I disagree because I feel love is the strongest feeling that a person can feel
and if it is true love then it can last forever. I think love is a feeling because when
you love someone, you get feelings in your body and mind. Thinking about a person can
bring on a wave of softness that is often described with love. Or the ever-common
butterfly's people often call love. These are all feelings and are often experienced in
conjunction with love. 
Finally, Scott Peck's book The Road Less Traveled is the only book that combats the
general feeling that love is forever, and that love does conquer all, and that real love
is a sudden thing. Peck offers these as only misconceptions and untruths in the eyes of
the definition of real love. 
Bibliography
Works Cited
Peck, M. Scott(1978) The Road Less Traveled New York: Simon and Schuster 
James, King(1976) The BIBLE: King James Version John Schultz Publishers