BEAUTIFUL RELATIONSHIPS. Review on Road Less Traveled, The - M. Scott Peck

For a moment imagine yourself sitting on a very comfortable sofa , in an A-C room , with a soothing fragnance , with a 72" TV in front of you with beautiful videos and you are having a lovely dish . Isnt that a great feeling ? Wont we all want that in our lives .

We all appreciate physical comfort but here we are going to talk about the not so evident , emotional comfort , which affects our lives in a much more drastic way and also about the most talked about 4 letter word ...

So , what is love ? It is a feeling . Thats it , just a feeling , which scientifically speaking is natures trick to lure us into mating and a commitment for lasting relationship that is needed to bring up a healthy offspring . Unfortunately this feeling does not mean a healthy and nourishing relationship .

Lets go little deeper . Love is a subjective experience , very powerful esp. in the youth , when a person strongly feels " I love him/her ." But , there are two problems here . First , this experience is specifically a sex linked erotic experience . We do not ’fall in love’ with our parents , bro/sis , children even though we love them . We fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated . The second problem is that this experience is invariably temporary . The honeymoon always ends .

Sooner or later with passage of time , we start to realise the unreality of our feelings , even though we may not want to face it . With the problems of daily living , we start to see the idiosyncracies of our loved one , who once appeared perfect because we were blind to his/her faults now starts appearing like the imperfect human being he/she actually is . Everyone falls out of the feeling of being in love .( never mind the movies though , lol ).

Real love exists . And it begins with reality . True (mature) love is not a feeling by which we get overwhelmed , instead it is a committed , wise and thoughtful decision .

Wise and thoughtful because real loving requires maturity , to see another person as he or she actually is and to see ourselves as we actually are .

Committed because commitment is the foundation , the bedrock of any genuinely loving relationship . It means that partners are there for each other whether they like it or not . 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 .

With this backdrop , lets get back to the example in the begining . We all can identify physical comfort . Emotional comfort is respect for someone as he/she is . It is attention for people who are important to you , time to listen to them . It is commitment to be there for them , in times of need .

This is what makes wonderful , not just marriage , which is one of the most important relationship in your life but every other relationship in your life : your best friend , your parents , your children or anyone you spend your precious time with .

This is not what you expect of others , but instead when you improve yourself , grow , and above all love and respect yourself that you can nourish ordinary relationships into beautiful and healthy relationships .

Hope this simplified summary of "the road less travelled" was useful . Bye and best wishes .