Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck

By: Sarah Yun

Life is always filled with challenges and trials. Sometimes these challenges can be painful and they often lead us to have to confront our reality. In the book, The Road Less Traveled talks about these challenges and why humans continue to lack the constant growth and opportunity for improvement. The book really touches on how the avoidance of problems will lead to the lack of growth in opportunities. The problems that we face in life are the ones that we as humans can grow from the most. I really enjoyed reading this book because it showed that being able to travel a difficult road or a difficult journey requires one to have self-discipline. The book also speaks on the important notion that life is difficult and us humans are the only ones to be able to develop the right tools and guidance so that we can move through it. It helped me acknowledge that the first step in being able to really solve our problems is to acknowledge them.

One of the tools that the book really touches on is the idea of the “delay of gratification”. To provide the definition this means the “process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a 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”. In short, the book touches on going through hardships now so that we can plan and prepare for a better future. This really can touch on every aspect in life. We are accepting the idea of going through such a short and quick pain so that we can personally grow from them in helping us be able to confront problems that arise later on. As children it is important to have that self-discipline because we will never learn to be able to wait for the great things in life. A child may not want to study or do homework and instead their grades will suffer from it later on. If one does not have self-discipline then he or she will often just be controlled by their own impulses. This can relate a lot to us as recruiters and for me personally. I started at Germer just a few months ago and I am still growing and learning something every day.  I may often go through the struggles of finding the right candidate or having a sense of rejection when things do not plan out the way that I had hoped for. But with this, I learned that sometimes things are way out of my control and I can only grow and mature from these challenges. I can go through all the challenges now and be able to learn to navigate through them and apply what I learned from them later on down the road. It is important to acknowledge that we are only human, and we can only move forward.

Another tool that the author of this book talks about is allowing ourselves to be dedicated to the truth. One of the quotes of this chapter really stuck with me, “If a map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost”(Peck, 44). I really liked this quote because although it is so simple, it really speaks valid points. In life, we may feel the need to tell lies in the present moment to be able to avoid future problems or pain. But in reality, the lies will only come back and cause future complications down the road. This is really important to me, because as a recruiter it is vital that I am always honest with myself and with the client or the candidate. Without the truth or the reality of the situation, we will have difficulty in really getting to that finish line. Therefore, we have to be dedicated in finding the truth and realizing that sometimes life is not so picture perfect. We have to be able to take some steps back and look at the map as a whole to see the bigger picture. Without this sense of truth, we will only find ourselves lying to others and to our own self. Sometimes I may think that a lie will protect myself from the pain of reality, but really it is harboring me in not allowing myself to personally grow. The more I allow myself to be able to accept the reality of the world, the more I am in better preparing myself to deal with the world and the false illusions of it. For me, sometimes taking in criticism may not be the easiest thing to deal with. When I feel like I have not succeeded, I am my worst critic. But because I accept and learn from others giving me those criticisms and helping me learn from my struggles, it only gives me that motivation to really grow and learn how to become better as an individual.

I would a hundred percent recommend this book to everyone out there. It has not only helped me grow in the recruiting industry but it has helped me out in a lot of different areas. This book touches on every aspect of life from growth, to love and to religion. The book provides a meaning behind of what it means to be human and how we can strive to become better through our struggles.