The Road Less Traveled
    A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Love Defined

- Love provides the motive, the energy for discipline
- Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured
- Love:
    - The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth
- Distinguishing love from non-love.   
    - Major distinguishing feature is conscious or unconscious purpose in the mind of lover or non-lover
    - Love is strangely circular: evolutionary process, and then you are able to love more completely
    - This definition includes self-love with love for the other
        - We cannot love another unless we love ourselves
        - Impossible to forsake our own spiritual development in favor of someone else's
        - Self-love and love of another are ultimately indistinguishable
    - Extending one's limits implies effort
        - Love becomes demonstrable/real through our exertion
        - Love is not effortless.    It is effortful.
    - "will" implies more than just desire
        - Will is desire of sufficient intensity that it IS translated into action
        - Love must include both intention and action

Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.