Books by Gordon Livingston MD
Only Spring: On Mourning the Death of My Son
The loss of a child is every parent's most unspeakable fear. Gordon Livingston survived that tragedy not once but twice in a 13-month period, losing one son to suicide and another to leukemia. Only Spring, based on the journal he began keeping when the family received six-year-old Lucas's diagnosis, traces the excruciating ordeal of witnessing his child's courageous battle and the agonizing cycle of faith lost and hope regained. As a memorial, Only Spring will introduce you to a remarkable child whose legacy of hope and love can enrich each of us. As a portrait of survival, it will infuse us with the strength and faith to confront the most profound challenges in our lives.
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Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now
by Gordon Livingston MD, 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.
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Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now
by Gordon Livingston MD, Gordon Livingston
The beloved bestselling collection of common sense wisdom from a celebrated psychologist and military veteran who proves it's never too late to move beyond the deepest of personal losses
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, including:
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 other truths 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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The Thing You Think You Cannot Do: Thirty Truths about Fear and Courage
by Gordon Livingston MD, Gordon Livingston
Fear-of change, of intimacy, of loss, of the unknown-has become a corrosive influence in modern life, eroding our ability to think clearly. Overcoming our fear, says Dr. Gordon Livingston, constitutes the most difficult struggle we face. Dr. Livingston has increasingly found himself prescribing virtues like courage to his patients instead of antidepressants. Now he tells us what we need to do to develop personal virtues in the face of societal and individual fears. He does all this with the crystalline prose and leavening wit that have made him an internationally bestselling author.
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The Thing You Think You Cannot Do: Thirty Truths about Fear and Courage
by Gordon Livingston MD, Gordon Livingston
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."
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And Never Stop Dancing: Thirty More True Things You Need to Know Now
by Gordon Livingston MD, Gordon Gordon Livingston M.D.
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.
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And Never Stop Dancing: Thirty More True Things You Need to Know Now
by Gordon Livingston MD, Gordon Gordon Livingston M.D.
Dr. Gordon Livingston’s national bestseller, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, has drawn tens of thousands of readers who have embraced its thirty bedrock truths about life and how best to live it. Now, in And Never Stop Dancing, Dr. Livingston — a Vietnam War veteran, psychiatrist, and parent twice bereaved — offers thirty more true things we need to know now.
The fresh truths Dr. Livingston explores include: Paradox governs our lives. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. We are defined by what we fear. As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.
Once again, here are Dr. Livingston’s sterling qualities: a deep understanding of the emotional tumult that courses through our lives — our hidden hypocrisies, desires, and evasions; an unerring sense of what is important; and his own ability to persevere — to hope — in a world he knows to be capable of inflicting unjustifiable and lifelong suffering.
These qualities — plus his perfectly pitched sense of humor and a singular voice — add up to another extraordinary book — one which, like its predecessor, offers us a gentle, generous, and unusual alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such an expensive commodity.
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