From a psychiatrist who has spent the past thirty years listening to other people’s most intimate secrets and troubles—an eloquent, incisive, and deeply perceptive book about the things we all grapple with as we strive to make the most of the life we have left.
After service in Vietnam as a surgeon, Dr Gordon Livingston returned to the US 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 (most of them self-inflicted) that we have found to be unhappy. He is also a parent twice bereaved. In one thirteen-month period, he lost his eldest son to suicide and his youngest to leukaemia.
Out of a lifetime of experience, Livingston has extracted thirty bedrock truths. These essays underscore that ‘we are what we do’, and that while there may be no escaping who we are, we also have the capacity to face loss, misfortune, and regret and to move beyond them.
Full of things we may know but have not articulated to ourselves, 'Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart' is a gentle and generous alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such an expensive commodity.
