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 in 1968-69, at the height of the war 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, his youngest to leukaemia.

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.