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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN num: 9781569243732
ISBN number: 1569243735
Label: Da Capo Press
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: March 03, 2008
Publishing house: Da Capo Press
Sale Popularity Level: 153985
Studio: Da Capo Press
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Product Description:
From a psychiatrist who has spent the past thirty-five years listening to other people's most intimate problems and struggles, here is a generous and gentle alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such an expensive commodity.
After service in Vietnam, as a surgeon for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in 1968-69, at the height of the war, 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--what works, what doesn't, and the limitless ways (many of them self-inflicted) that people find 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, Gordon 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 a series of carefully hewn, perfectly calibrated essays, many of which focus on our closest relationships and the things that we do to impede or, less frequently, enhance them. Again and again, these essays 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--that it is not too late.
Full of things we may know but have not articulated to ourselves, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart offers solace, guidance, and hope to everyone ready to become the person they'd most like to be.
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Rated by buyers 
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I found this author's "true" things you need to know to not only not be true but also to simply reveal his very sad pessimistic view of life. Perhaps this view comes from his loss of two of his own children or his job as a psychiatrist. Whatever the reason, I do not recommend this book unless you want to validate problems and stay stuck in your developement or you just want to become depressed or like I did, feel sorry for the author.
Rated by buyers 
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I found the book to have some good points to think about. This book isn't one I'd go tell people to get, but it was a good one to listen to on my way to work everyday. It will make you think.
Rated by buyers 
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Few are immune to the problems of life. Some of them can truly affect us in negative ways. Dr. Livingston identifies many of these, and provides ways to deal with them effectively, by stimulating improved thinking and suggesting constructive remedies.
The book is a wonderful composite of professional advice from a medical doctor who is a practicing psychiatrist,combined with exceptional horse sense and straight talk, e.g., "We are responsible for most of what happens to us." As I reflected on my own 63 plus years, I thought that that just about summed it up. For many of us, there is no escaping that insight. Reading his book is analogous to having a wise and experienced uncle guide us through some of life's major problems and misapprehensions, suggesting to us how to make things better.
At the top of the list of what Dr. Livingston says we should try to nurture in our character and seek in our friends and lovers is kindness. He says this most desirable of virtues is key because it governs all the others, including a capacity for love and empathy. Such advice alone would probably help us eliminate a large number of other problems Dr. Livingston speaks about so effectively.
The author gets to the pith of things noting that happiness has three elemental requirements: something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. He says if we have those things, it's hard to be unhappy. He has a wonderful definition of love: "We love someone when the importance of his/her needs and desires rises to the level of our own...That love is demonstrated behaviorally...And that true love requires of us to become totally vulnerable to another."
And here's a real eye opener about marriages: "It is the failure of expectations over time that causes relationships to dissolve." I've heard it described as their being an "unwritten contract" about expectations that were in place at the beginning of the marriage, such as each will take care of his/her health, not use drugs, drink to excess, not gain an inordinate amount of weight, will be loyal, share the workload, etc. Dr. Livingston says "While it takes two people to create a relationship, it only takes one to end it."
Dr. Livingston writes not just as one who is among the best of us, but also as one who is the rest of us. He has faced having to cope with personal challenges of his own, including the loss of two of his beloved children. No prospective reader should think that the author is speaking to us from an ivory tower. His own life experience and professional training have uniquely prepared him to help many people in a variety of problematic situations.
I have been helped by the wise counsel contained in his book and recognized myself on a number of occasions in his writings. I feel reasonably confident that any thoughtful reader would have the same experience. We may be tweaked by different things when reading the book, but be assured that if you choose to purchase it, that help is on the way.
Dr. Livingston also recognizes the practical limitations of his helpful profession: "It is misplaced kindness to offer only sympathy. It is hope that I'm really selling. If, after extended effort, I cannot persuade someone to buy, I am wasting both our time by continuing." If someone can't buy into seeing some light at the end of the tunnel after being given lots of help and support, no one is going to be able to help them, until they're willing to start trying to help themselves and to see the possibility of a better day, at least in the distance. It is clear from anyone who reads this book that Dr. Livingston is a highly skilled facilitator, but he is also clearly a realist. He essentially says that he and other professionals are not miracle workers, and that we are ultimately responsible for our own self improvement.
The book is full of truisms recognized clearly through experience by a wise counselour who doesn't have to speculate on their truth. "Relationship is under the control of the person that cares the least." He knows such things by professional daily experience with his clients. One of the great advantages of reading his book is that we can gain real wisdom that can help us directly in these and similar situations and can also suggest when professional help would be beneficial.
Lawrence J. Danks
Author: "Your Unfinished Life"
Rated by buyers -
this book was very dissapointing. the content was practical and staight forward consisting of common sense and various observations with a few catch phrases. the author sounds like a nice guy who means well, but does not have much to contribute toward a better understanding of life for the average individual.
Rated by buyers -
I'm not sure why this book was published, as it doesn't contain anything particularly remarkable beyond one person's pontificating about life's hard lessons. I would like to be paid to spout my unremarkable opinions in a series of essays. Moreover, I find it annoying that the author, a psychiatrist, characterizes ADD as a "behavioral problem" that provides "relief from responsibility" and calls adult ADD a "diagnostic fad" that provides "disorganized, daydreaming procrastinators" with a medical explanation and stimulant drugs. It made me want to throw the book across the room. I wonder how he treats his patients who suffer from ADD, which is not a "pattern of behavior" as he calls it, but in fact a neurobehavioral developmental disorder, the evidence of which has been seen in scans of the prefrontal cortex.
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