And Never Stop Dancing: Thirty More True Things You Need ... (ISBN 159316081X)

Book Description:
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. Among the fresh truths Dr. Livingston identifies and explores 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. 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 (he does not waste a single moment writing about unimportant things); 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 voice that has been described as "more Job than Dr. Phil" (Roxanne Roberts, The Washington Post)—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.

"ah ha" observations:
The reader gets the benefit of the author's years of experience sitting with hundreds and hundreds of patients and his synthesis of their problems, his observations and potential remedies. I found this book to contain a number of insightful observations however it falls short of answering: "ok, so now what does one do?" In many of his lessons, Dr. Livingston digresses in his views on war and politics which seem to be detached side-pockets to the core message he is trying to convey. I found that this book fell short of the author's prior work ("Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart") but nevertheless contains a series of very insightful observations - including my favorites below: Chap 7 It is better to be spent than saved I frequently ask patients, "What are you saving yourself for?" People spend a lot of time conserving energy, usually while they wait for some event outside themselves to trigger their taking action...Passivity is the enemy of progress in therapy...I prefer to challenge people to relinquish passivity, stop waiting for answers outside themselves, mobilize their courage and determination, and try to discover what changes will bring them closer to others and to people they want to be. Chap 17 We all live downstream Most of the threats to human existence derive from the desire to bend the world to satisfy our need for rapid gratification. This, of course, is the basic philosophy of a consumer society. Look at the message conveyed by the advertising with which we are inundated. Over and over we are presented with images of people who are clearly enjoying life more than we are. They are younger, more attractive, with more friends and apparently an inexhaustible supply of leisure time. And how can we be more like them? By spending money, of course...At some level, all of us are sensible enough to know that what we have and how we look are going to keep us off the pages of People magazine indefinitely. Still, a chronic sense of dissatisfaction pursues us, and it is hard to live in a world in which we imagine that most other people are happier than we are. What this creates is a kind of disposable society that elevates a desire for the "new and improved" version of everything to a level of desirability that can never be satisfied. The state of mind encompasses both greed and envy; they're called deadly sins for a reason. If our relentless pursuit of the latest thing is the engine that drives our consumerist culture, the by-products and side effects are worrisome and include a perceptible decline in the environment in which we must live, and ultimately in the quality of the lives we will lead. Chap 27 Happiness Requires an ability to tolerate uncertainty "Those whose are willing to improvise do better than those who imagine they are working from a script. Put another way, if we think of ourselves as (largely) the authors of our own life dramas, we are likely to enjoy the trip more than those who rely on others for instruction. Chap 30 Most people die with their music still inside them ...we might do well to write one (an obituary) for ourselves, starting in our twenties, and revise it every year or two. What better way to confront who we are, what we're doing, what it all means, and whether we are making any progress toward becoming the people we would like to be remembered as?...what we write about ourselves can be a work of fiction. But the process of selecting how we would wish to be remembered has a way of focusing attention on what we have done, or - more important - failed to do with our lives...the real power of the exercise, however lies in the regret most of us feel (and that is never mentioned in actual obituaries) about our unfulfilled dreams. It turns out that few of us are living the lives we imagined for ourselves when we were young. We are often better off financially than we would have predicted, but it is unusual for someone to report that he is happier than he ever thought he would be. In fact, there is a kind of wistful quality among most people in middle age or older. This frequently takes the form of nostalgia for a simpler life that held more possibilities than the one we are actually living.

Good sense is not that common:
I read Dr.Livingston's book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart and it became my secular bible; I read it and re-read it for comfort and advice. This book is more of the same; just good advice on how to live life in a meaningful way with as much kindness as possible for our fellow human beings. He is pithy and wise and I highly recommend both books.

Learn and then move on!:
Another great book by Dr. Gordon Livingston. You can learn how to move out of the rut and move on with your life. You wouldn't sit in your car racing your engine and spinning your tires if you weren't moving out of the mud hole would you? Of course not, you would find a way to get out and continue on your way. Well do it! Read this book and get that extra push you need.

One of my Favorites:
I really liked this CD a lot is easier just to listen to someone read the reason I bought this item was I went on a Radio program on Radio Ahahs AM 8:30 and thing this was the Disc Jockey but I'm not sure this is him but I still like it any way!

Good but often sanctimonious:
I really enjoyed Gordon Livingston's first book "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" - a gathering of insights gleaned from four decades of listening to the same problems over and over from his psychiatrist's chair. However, with the deserved success of said book he has now delivered a sequel that tends to stray on occasion from the "observations on life that I've gleaned over the years" take that made his first book such a hit. To be sure, there are quite a few chapters that are solid and wise - not unlike the first book. At other times, he strays from the psychiatric profession and preaches his cynical political and social opinions, which I did not sign up for. His hypocrisy of complaining about folks on television ("experts") who argue political and social opinions should not be lost. Apparently they shouldn't do our thinking for us on these issues... but he can. Thanks Doc. For some reason, he presumes that we want to hear his opinions on the Bush administration, about universal "tolerance" of others (what about standards? or excellence?), the pharmaceutical industry, the military, and his constant carping on those with strong religious convictions. For me, personally, he wore out his welcome in this book. I do recommend reading it though since there remain several pearls of wisdom in it. I would simply caution the reader to read each chapter with a sharp eye for when Livingston gets out of his therapist's chair and up on his soapbox.