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Throw us a bone

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

M. Scott Peck - RIP
Sunday December 18, 2005

Dedication: Today’s essay is dedicated to Starbucks Corporation. This company has helped revive neighborhoods and bring life to tired downtowns, it treats its customers /employees (partners) and suppliers while well while growing rapidly (five stores a day opened in 2005). We think Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz would approve of the sentiments expressed in this essay.

Of course, we could be mistaken about that, but we're confident he would approve. Enjoy.

"George Bush has started an ill-timed and disastrous war under false pretenses by lying to the American people and to the Congress; he has run a budget surplus into a severe deficit; he has consistently and unconscionably favored the wealthy and corporations over the rights and needs of the population; he has destroyed trust and confidence in, and good will toward, the United States around the globe; he has ignored global warming, to the world's detriment; he has wantonly broken our treaty obligations; he has condoned torture of prisoners; he has attempted to create a theocracy in the United States; he has appointed incompetent cronies to positions of vital national importance. Now, would someone please give him a blow job so we can impeach him?"

~Anonymous (from the Internet)

M. Scott Peck, author of the 1978 best-seller The Road Less Traveled and assorted knock-off updates such as More Roads Less Traveled and Son of Less Traveled Roads or something like that, died a few months ago at age 69. He was quite influential and deserves acknowledgment from those of us who champion effective, healthful lifestyle choices. Peck's flagship work, The Road Less Traveled, perched profitably on the New York Times best-seller list for over a decade. Peck's style was thick with religious teachings, a characteristic that made him sound more like Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking, 1952) and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen than other popular self-help gurus Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People , 1936) or Benjamin Spock (Baby and Child Care, 1946). Peck gave readers step-by-step advice for taking control of their lives. He artfully mixed secular wisdom with his spiritual gobbledygook. By doing so, he attracted the gooey, faithful devotees that have made Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield and Mitch Albom, among others, quite rich. There is something to be said for feel-good palaverous pablum, so I'll say it: Peck's books did more good than harm.

While more preacher ("laziness was the original sin, and God's grace was the cure") than wellness promoter, most of Dr. Peck's advice was such that wellness promoters would endorse. Among the messages in The Road... were the following:

Embrace self-responsibility. Be accountable for your problems and overall life situation. For solutions, look first to steps YOU can take to make things better. Do not whine, excuse or avoid responsibility.
Recognize the demands life makes -- and don't take them personally. Life IS difficult, a series of problems, one after another. Why make a big deal about it?
Choose your attitudes. Many if not most/all psychological disturbances are simply "disorders of thinking" which require more positive and constructive perspectives. (Easy to say! When my colleague Bob Ludlow saw this, he wrote: "Sheesh, let's just have a big pep rally and cure all the mentally ill people.")
Delay gratification. Expect sacrifice, pain and suffering. Properly managed, they can make you stronger. Suffering is (potentially) good for you! (Sounds like Mother Theresa!)
Recognize the root of mental illness. The root cause is trying to avoid difficulties, setbacks, suffering and the like. Expect these things and deal with what comes. This is the decent way to live.
Create a supportive environment. Seek involvement with communities of interest, such as church groups and other such networks (for examples., AA, Weight Watchers and so on).

Of course, many of the basic concepts Peck addressed were developed by others without the god-talk. A few of these also proved highly successful, such as Thomas Harris's 1967 I'm OK, You're OK, Eric Berne's 1964 Games People Play, John Bradshaw's 1990 Homecoming (silly inner child babble) and my favorite -- Harry Browne's How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World along with Robert Ringer's 1977 Looking Out for #1.

Oddly, the bizarre god-talk in The Road... (for instance, "the unconscious is God") was off-putting not only to rational infidels but also to hard-core religious extremists. Some fundamentalists criticized Peck for non-literal interpretations of the Bible! Wow - how dare he? Others of this ilk found him guilty of "New Age spirituality" and heresy. (Source: Christine B. Whelan, "The Road Is Heavily Traveled Now," Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2005.)

Well, anyone who offends the fundamentalists can't be all bad. M. Scott Peck - RIP.

Be well and always look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of relationships. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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