Chicken Soup for the Soul ... but Missing a Few Noodles

books:


	• Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now Gordon Livingston Da Capo Press, 2004 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Makes you bear down and think...

There is something in this book for everyone. You'll need to wade through and past certain lessons that aren't applicable to you at this time or state of your life. The book is a mix of lessons of a practicing psychiatrist, lessons from his own life (which were particularly moving and insightful) and lessons he is trying to pass along to the reader - so the book does at times read like a "hodge-podge" as stated by another reviewer. You won't find that the "30 True Things You Need to Know Now" come with a 3-step playbook on how to fix or succeed but the insights are valuable. The following chapters were particularly useful for me:

Chapter 4: The statute of limitations has expired on most of our childhood traumas. We are responsible for most of what happens to us

Chapter 6: Feelings follow behavior.
As much as we try, we do not control how we feel or what we think. Efforts to do so are uniformly frustrating as we struggle against unwanted thoughts and emotions in ways that only exacerbate them....But any change requires that we try new things, risking always the possibility that we might fail. Another question I often ask patients is, `What are you saving yourself for?'.

Chapter 9: Life's Two Most important questions are `Why?' and `Why Not'? The trick is knowing which one to ask. If people are reluctant to answer `Why?' questions in their lives, they also tend to have trouble with `Why Not'? The latter implies risk. Steeped in habit and fearful of change, most of us are to some degree risk averse. Particularly in activities that may involve rejection, we tend to act as if our sense of ourselves is fragile and must be protected. One would think that these fears would improve with age and experience; the opposite is usually the case...To take the risk necessary to achieve this goal is an act of courage. To refuse them, to protect our hearts against all loss, is an act of despair."

Chapter 11: The most secure prisons are those we construct for ourselves...So much of our lives consists of broken promises to ourselves. The things we long to do - educate ourselves, become successful in our work, fall in love, are goals share by all. Nor are the means to achieve these things obscure. And yet we often do not do what is necessary to become the people we want to be. It is human to shift blame for our failures...a shortage of time and the requirement to make a living are common excuses for inaction. Also, the fear that we might try and not succeed can produce a crippling inertia. Keeping our expectations low protects us from disappointment....whenever, as happens frequently, I point out to people the discrepancy between what they say they want and what they actually do, the response is surprise and sometime outrage that I will not take their expressions of intent at face value but prefer to focus on the only communication that can be trusted: behavior."

Chapter 15: Only Bad Things Happen Quickly. The process of building has always been slower and more complicated than that of destruction.

Chapter 18: There is nothing more pointless, or common than doing the same things and expecting different results.
I believe in what works. What you are doing now isn't working. Why not try something else?

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I will read this over and over

So beautifully expressed and covering a wide range of life-topics. This isn't your usual snake-oil self-help book, but a quiet reflection on the important things in life. It serves as an inspiration and a gentle nudge in the right direction.

Thank you, I feel I will read this many times in my life.

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Chicken Soup for the Soul ... but Missing a Few Noodles

Dr. Gordon Livingston, psychiatrist, imparts his 30 pearls of wisdom in this short pithy book. He has had his share of suffering and scar tissue. Within a 13-month period, one of his sons committed suicide and another died in an accident. Plus, the guy got run over by a riderless snowmobile while standing in a lift line. Talk about "bad things happening to good people"!

My main misgiving is that each chapter seems to consist of preachy platitudes, verging on gas-baggery. The tome of the writing was off-putting to me, but I may be in the minority.

Like most forms of chicken soup, taking it won't hurt and it may actually help.

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in the vein of "The Road Less Traveled"

"Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" is another steam-of-consciousness book from a wise person with something to say. About fifteen years ago, I read Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled", which is similar in terms of message and intended audience, if not length and style. "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" is a palm-sized, double-spaced waif of a book sub-divided into 30 short chapters with two underlying themes of parenting-is-an-art-not-science and a life-is-tough-so-suck-it-up philosophy.

Initially I was disappointed as I went through the first few chapters. While I liked the majority of the author's comments, it was nonetheless editorial opinion organized in an unstructured fashion that would be much better presented in a periodical. Then as I kept reading, it all came together. Livingston is a Vietnam vet, experienced psychiatrist, and parent that has experienced personal tragedies, and provides very good insight on life, its pitfalls, and how to overcome them (or at least coexist), all interspersed with political and professional rants and observations from his practice.

The author does not appear to be an aloof therapist with shallow generalizations. He has his own deep scars from life which color his perspectives and apparently enhance his ability to sympathize/empathize. Yet Livingston does not coddle or offer easy answers. He says "Most people know what is good for them, know what will make them feel better". They are just "no longer motivated" to do those things. While changing behavior may be difficult, difficult does not mean impossible. Despite a society that promotes instant gratification, change cannot be rapidly achieved. "Virtually all the happiness-producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time ... That's why patience and determination are among life's primary virtues."

Livingston's advice on parenting provides absolution from the guilt of breaking the pithy rules set by child-rearing pundits. "Parents have a limited ability to shape children's behavior, except for the worse". He says "children are not a blank slate upon which parents inscribe the rules." He has seen that "children can be raised successfully under a variety of parental regimes from authoritarian to permissive", and what is important is that children feel loved and respected. Our primary goal as parents is to love them, keep them safe, and give them hope and a sense they can be happy in this uncertain world. "What we cannot do is expect that children who are constantly criticized, bullied, and lectured will think well of themselves and their future".

Like Peck in his seminal work, Livingston's comments can be appreciated by a very wide audience. Paradoxically, Livingston both removes and instills hope. He presents an existence of hardship, suffering and death - without the promise of the Christian eternal life; yet he suggests a solution from which we can find happiness: laughter, optimism, integrity, and finding "something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to".

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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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