A friend mentioned that he read this title and was greatly inspired, so I decided to look into it myself. Rather than purchase the book, I availed myself to audio tapes of the book as orated by the author. These are available on youtube. Below are some comments from the earlier part of the series that I judge to be useful points of contemplation and potential personal growth.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
It is with hesitation that I delve into self-help advice from persons that do not validate their teachings in their personal lives. Peck famously was divorced from his supposedly devoted wife after bouts of infidelity from his part and neglect. Yes, he took advantage of his position from seekers of wisdom and inspiration. Pathetic. Worse, to my judgement, was his dysfunctional relationship with his children, with whom he was not on speaking terms. Abhorrent.
My lesson from this is that wisdom in the abstract is a sad thing. Consider the enlightened new age man, living his life from consiousness and understanding, dying lonely and despised, but wise. Consider the neurotic old age man who lives a long adulthood never achieving mastery of his fears, but with a devoted spouse, family, and friends. This is not to suggest causality, but rather perspective.
Nonetheless, I follow the example of Maimonedes who did not hesitate to quote Greek philosophers where he saw value in doing so and despite irrecconiable differences on pivotal points of world view. Take it for what it is worth.
Wisdom Points
(1) Author observes a neighbor fixing his lawn mower and comments on his admiration of the neighbor's mechanical ability. "I could never do that because I am not mechanically gifted." The neighbor retorts - that's not true. Rather, you just don't put the time into it. The author continues to tell about how he accepted this criticisim and went on to assist another person with a mechanical problem by simply taking the time to work on it. This is a principal and pitfall in many arena's of our lives. We don't know how to be a good spouse, to help a child deal with a problem, business issues - you name it. If we care about something, then we must invest the time, thought, and energy to making it work.
(2) Author invested extra hours in dealing with patients while completing his internship in psychiatry. Other interns saw their patients less often and as a result left work a few hours earlier than the author, and he resented his colleagues for the disparity. Author came to the realization that by resenting his colleagues, he was indeed resenting his own choice to be different from them. He despised his own freedom of choice.
