From a psychiatrist who has spent the past thirty-five years listening to other people"s most intimate problems and struggles, here is a generous and gentle alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such an expensive commodity. 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 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 (many of them self-inflicted) that people find 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, Gordon 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...