Summary:

Dependency isn't love. This is the first lesson given by Dr. Peck in this part of the book. Passively dependent people are so busy seeking love that they have no energy left to love, and they have a tendency of rapid changeability. This means, for instance, that they very easily find someone else to depend on after break-ups. It is important in a marriage not to become to dependent on the other, this to make it possible to live without the other partner. The doctor also explains that passive dependent people's feeling of emptiness very often is a result of their parents' failure to fulfil their needs for affection.

Dependent people are often not interested in their partner's spiritual growth. Instead they're only occupied with their own happiness and nourishment. One is only able to love other humans, a relationship with an animal will always be significantly different. This because, among other reasons, that we only find pets satisfactory as their will coincide with ours. It is more or less a love connected to our paternal instincts. Neither does self-sacrifice has much to do with love. On self-sacrifice, the author writes that: "Whenever we think of ourselves of doing something for someone else, we are in some way denying our own responsibility. Whatever we do is done because we choose to do it, and we make that choice because it is the one that satisfies us the most". What is often perceived as self-sacrifice might just as well be an act of egoism, and this is underlined by the doctor.

The doctor ends with explaining how love is an action, not a feeling. It is a will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own and another's spiritual growth. To feel love is much easier than actually performing true and genuine love.

Reading note:

Good, Dr. Peck, finally we are getting somewhere. I especially liked the section which I quoted above. To take the statement to its limits; was Mother Theresa's lifelong work of compassion a sheer act of egoism? From the time she had a religious experience as an early teen in what is now Albania, she actively worked to improve the conditions of the poor world-wide. Still, was this the choice that in the end would satisfy her the most?

Even if Dr. Peck here as a very interesting theoretic point, he probably would also agree on there being much more than egoism behind Mother Theresa's compassion for others. Still it is obviously correct that at lot that may seem as self-sacrifice actually isn't. Therefore I think it is important to consider if one's action always is the most beneficial to one's fellow human being. A life of dependency certainly isn't, and it is sad that many people suffer from this destructive social behaviour. It certainly doesn't benefit anyone, even though I probably would consider some dependency in a marriage to be an advantage.