And Never Stop Dancing

Fear – of change, of intimacy, of loss, of the unknown – has become a corrosive influence in modern life, eroding our ability to think clearly and make good decisions. Exploited for power by politicians and for money by the media, fear has become embedded in the way we think about our lives. Overcoming fear though the exercise of courage, says Gordon Livingston, constitutes the most difficult struggle we face.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”                                                                                    -Eleanor Roosevelt

And Never Stop Dancing

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.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

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 share-and which every one of us grapples with as we strive to make the most of the life we have left. After service in Vietnam as a surgeon for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment m 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 (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, 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 a series of carefully hewn, perfectly calibrated essays, many of which emphasize 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 also 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 is a gentle and generous alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such an expensive commodity. For everyone who feels a sense of urgency that the clock ticks and still we aren’t the person we’d like to be, it offers solace, guidance, and hope.

Only Spring

The loss of a child is every parent’s worst fear. Gordon Livingston survived that tragedy, not once but twice, in successive years. Only Spring, crafted from his journal, traces his son Lucas’s courageous battle with leukemia. his extraordinary gift of love, and Livingston’s own cycle of faith lost and hope regained. This edition includes a new epilogue by the author.