Love is Disciplined

I love this.

"Because genuine love requires an extension of oneself, vast amounts of energy are required, and, like it or not, the store of our energy is as limited as the hours of our day. We simply cannot love everyone. Genuine love for a few individuals is all that is within our power.

To attempt to exceed the limits of our energy is to offer more than we can deliver, and there is a point of no return beyond which an attempt to love all comers becomes fraudulent and harmful to the very ones we desire to assist. We have to choose whom we are actually to love. This choice is not easy; it may be excruciatingly painful, as the assumption of godlike power often is. But it must be made.

Many factors need to be considered, primarily the capacity of a prospective recipient of our love to respond to that love with spiritual growth. People differ in this capacity. It is unquestionable, however, that there are many whose spirits are locked in unpenetrable armour that even the greatest efforts to nurture the growth of those spirits are doomed to almost certain failure. To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spritual growth is to waste your energy and cast your seed on arid ground."

That is from 'The Road Less Travelled' by M Scott Peck, a psycotherapist who wrote the book based on his many years in practice. I'm reading it at age 60 but wish I had when I was 30 which was about when it was written. I have left out a phrase or two for brevity but it rings huge bells for me, as does most of the book.

In the same chapter, "Freedom and discipline are indeed handmaidens; without the discipline of genuine love, freedom is invariably nonloving and destructive."

Then a little later, "Call it what you will, genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy."

We all need a bit of freedom, we all need discipline. This book is helping me understand myself and so much of what has happened in my life. Not that I want to be self absorbed, but it relates to me and those around me and those I have loved and love.

I have worked long and hard lately and have no energy to write about my activity but talking about this book came enthusiastically to me. I'd recommend everyone to have a read of this book which is subtitled 'The New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth.'