Jayden Paul

“Let us say, for example, that there is a flaw in my personality, and my friends start criticizing me for its manifestations. My first reaction is one of denial: She just got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, I think, or He’s really just angry at his wife. Through such things I tell myself that their criticisms really don’t have anything to do with me. But if my friends keep it up, then I get angry at them. What gives them the right to stick their noses into my business? They don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes. Why don’t they keep their noses in their own darn business?, I think, or perhaps even tell them. If they love me enough to keep after me, however, then I bargain: Actually I haven’t given them many pats on the back lately or told them what a good job they’re doing. And I go around smiling at my friends and being of good cheer, hoping that will shut them up. But if it doesn’t work—if they still insist on criticizing me—I finally begin to contemplate the possibility: Maybe there really is something wrong with me. And that’s depressing. But if I can hang in there with that depressing notion, contemplate it, stay with it, analyze it, I can not only discern the nature of the flaw in my personality but begin the work of isolating and naming it and ultimately eradicating it, killing it, emptying myself of it. And should I succeed at this work of assisting a part of me to die, I will emerge from the other end of my depression a new and better and, in some sense, resurrected person.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

“It is in the whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.”
― M. Scott Peck

“This inclination to ignore problems is once again a simple manifestation of an unwillingness to delay gratification. Confronting problems is, as I have said, painful. To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suffer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in the hope that future suffering will not be necessary.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult ―once we truly understand and accept it― then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth