Gordon Livingston

After service in Vietnam as a surgeon in 1968-69, Dr. Gordon Livingston returned to the U.S. and began work as a psychiatrist. In that capacity, he has listened to people talk about their lives and the limitless ways that they have found to be unhappy. He is also a parent twice bereaved. In one thirteen-month period, he lost his eldest son to suicide, his youngest to leukemia. Out of a lifetime of experience, Livingston has extracted thirty bedrock truths: We are what we do. Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Only bad things happen quickly. Forgiveness is a form of letting go, but they are not the same thing. The statute of limitations has expired on most of our childhood traumas. Livingston illuminates these and twenty-four others in perfectly calibrated essays, many of which emphasize our closest relationships and the things that we do to impede or enhance them. These writings underscore that "we are what we do," and that while there may be no escaping who we are, we have the capacity to face loss, misfortune, and regret, and to move beyond them.

Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

Gordon Livingston Md

Dr Gordon Livingston has been a psychiatrist since the 1960s, and has heard from his patients the whole spectrum of those things in life that work and that don't work - and the limitless ways in which we are capable of inflicting unhappiness on ourselves. Out of this lifetime of experience he has extracted thirty bedrock truths, amongst them 'We are what we do', 'Only bad things happen quickly', 'We are afraid of the wrong things' and 'Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid'. Gordon believes that we all have a wonderful capacity to face loss, misfortune and regret, and that it is never too late to move beyond them and find greater happiness. This profound and incisive book of collected wisdoms and deceptively simple truths will encourage and inspire you to seek and recognise the best in your life - to realise that it is never too late to find your greatest happiness, and how to go about it.

On Mourning the Death of My Son

Only Spring

What are we afraid of and what can we do about it?Fear--of change, of intimacy, of loss, of the unknown--has become a corrosive influence in modern life, eroding our ability to think clearly. Exploited for power by politicians and for money by the media, it has become embedded in the way we think about our lives. Overcoming our fear, says Gordon Livingston, constitutes the most difficult struggle we face. Dr. Livingston, a psychiatrist, has increasingly found himself prescribing virtues like courage to his patients instead of tranquilizers or antidepressants. Now he tells us all what we need to do to develop personal virtues in the face of societal fear-and our own individual fears. And he does this with the crystalline prose and leavening wit that have made him an internationally bestselling author. As the celebrated novelist Mark Helprin has said of Dr. Livingston: "To read him is to trust him and to learn, for his life has been touched by fire, and his motives are absolutely pure."

Thirty Truths about Fear and Courage

The Thing You Think You Cannot Do

In Dr. Gordon Livingston's follow-up to his national bestseller Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, he offers thirty more true things we need to know now. Among the fresh truths he identifies and explores in this book, which has sold more than 50,000 copies in hardcover, are: Paradox governs our lives. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. Marriage ruins a lot of good relationships. We are defined by what we fear. We all live downstream. One of life's most difficult tasks is to see ourselves as others see us. As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. Most people die with their music still inside of them. Dr. Livingston's sterling qualities are in evidence again: a clear and deep understanding of the hidden hypocrisies, desires, evasions, and emotional tumult that course through our lives; an unerring sense of what is important; and his own ability to persevere—to hope—in a world he knows is capable of inflicting unjustifiable and lifelong suffering.

Thirty More True Things You Need to Know Now

And Never Stop Dancing

Poté, co v letech 1968–1969 sloužil ve Vietnamu jako chirurg, se Gordon Livingston vrátil do USA a začal pracovat jako psychiatr. Naslouchal vyprávění svých pacientů – o tom, co v životě funguje a co ne a o tisícerých způsobech, jak, mnohdy vlastní vinou, dokážeme být nešťastní. Sám také utrpěl velké osobní ztráty – v rozmezí třinácti měsíců přišel o dva syny. Nejstarší spáchal sebevraždu a nejmladšího zabila leukemie. Ze svých celoživotních zkušeností vytěžil Livingston třicet základních životních pravd, které jsou obsaženy v této knize. Objasňuje je v jemně utkaných a dokonale kalibrovaných esejích. Znovu a znovu se v nich opakuje pravidlo, že jsme to, co děláme, a i když nelze uniknout před tím, čím jsme, dokážeme čelit ztrátám, štěstí a i žalu a přenést se přes ně.

Gordon Livingston

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