Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart - by Gordon Livingston (Paperback)

About the Book

Psychiatrist Livingston has spent the past three decades "listening to other people's most intimate secrets and troubles." Having endured his own fair share of loss and sorrow, Livingston has come to recognize 30 truths that everyone needs to learn before it's too late.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"[An] excellent self-help book."
--Palm Beach Post

"[Livingston] underscores our capacity to face loss, tragedy, and regret, and our ability to move beyond them."
--Senior Digest

"A book I not only like but respect."
--Palm Beach Post

"Delightful."--Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

"The author creates an aura of wisdom about a great many things."
--Deseret Morning News

"The slim book by Columbia-based psychiatrist Gordon Livingston has been a source of inspiration for many."--Baltimore Sun

About the Author

Gordon Livingston, MD, a graduate of West Point and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who was awarded the Bronze Star for valor in Vietnam, was a psychiatrist and writer who contributed frequently to the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Baltimore Sun. His books include Only Spring; Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart; And Never Stop Dancing; How to Love; and The Thing You Think You Cannot Do.