155. M. SCOTT PECK — B

The Road Less Traveled (1978) was written by Scott Peck when he was 40. It stayed on the New York Times best seller list for years, sold more than 10 million copies, and was translated into 20 languages. Peck was a psychiatrist, and he served in the Army rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was Chief of Psychology and Medical Director in several assignments before beginning his private psychiatric practice. There is also evidence of his being a bit of a theologian.

His first book was followed by several more. In addition, he was a popular lecturer. Although his personal life was not a model one, the insights from his personal life as well as his experiences made sense to millions. This week’s triptych gleans insights from two of his later books: The Road Less Traveled and Beyond (1997), which he wrote when he was 60 and that he said ties together many of the ways in which he had been pushed, and A World Waiting to be Born (1993).

“I believe that we are all born narcissists. Healthy people grow out of their natural narcissism, a growth that can be accomplished only as they become more conscious and learn to consider others, and think about them more.”

“As I’ve grown in consciousness, naturally, I’m learning to be less narcissistic and more empathetic toward other people. But in looking back, one of my regrets is how unempathetic I was with my own parents as they were aging. It took my own personal struggles with the aging process to better understand what my own parents must have endured and now I feel a greater sense of kinship with them than ever before.

“While growing out of narcissism — our self-centeredness and often excessive sense of importance — is more than anything else what life is about, it is equally vital that we also simultaneously learn to come to terms with just how important and valuable we are.”

“We need moments when we realize that we do not have it all together and that we are not perfect. Such moments are crucial to our growth because loving ourselves requires the capacity to recognize that there is something about us we need to work on.

“So there is a difference between insisting that we always feel good about ourselves (which is narcissistic and synonymous with constantly preserving our self-esteem) and insisting that we regard ourselves as important or valuable (which is healthy self-love). … If we value ourselves, we are likely to believe that we are worth whatever effort we need to make for ourselves.”

“Sometimes God actually seems to directly intervene in people’s lives to give them a message of their value. … It is indeed an experience of overwhelming grace when one who for very long has devalued himself is granted a divine revelation that he does indeed matter after all. … Again and again all of the great religions tell us that the path away from narcissism is the path toward meaning in life.”

“The words ‘health,’ ‘wholeness,’ and ‘holiness’ all have the same root. It is both our psychological and our spiritual task — particularly during the second half of our life — to work toward the fullest expression of our potentials as human beings, to become the best that we can be.”

“The crux of integrity is wholeness. And through wholeness as human beings we can practice the paradox of liberation and celebration. … [Tom Langford] points out, ‘people who focus exclusively on liberation become fanatic and glum, while those who focus only on celebration will be frothy, superficial, and glib.’”

Q: To what extent do you feel that you are growing away from narcissism toward wholeness?