After serving as a surgeon in Vietnam at the height of the war, Dr. Gordon Livingston returned to the U.S. and began work as a psychiatrist. In that capacity, he listened to hundreds of people talk about their lives – what works, what doesn’t, and the limitless ways 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, and his youngest to leukemia.
Out of a lifetime of experience, Gordon Livingston decided to write a series of beautifully calibrated essays entitled ‘Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart’. These essays underscore that while there may be no escaping who we are, it is never too late to move beyond loss, misfortune, or regret... and choose happiness instead.
Are you ready to discover which statement has chosen you this month? Intuitively pick a number between 1 and 9, and see which inspirational saying and oil blend is choosing you today:
1. “Happiness is not simply the absence of despair.
It is an affirmative state in which our lives have both meaning and pleasure.”
Oil Blend: Joy Oil
2. “If the map doesn't agree with the ground, the map is wrong.”
Oil Blend: Common Sense
3. “Everything we are afraid to try, all our unfulfilled dreams,
constitute a limitation on what we are and could become.”
Oil Blend: Valor
4. “Life's two most important questions are 'Why?' and 'Why not?'
The trick is knowing which one to ask.”
Oil Blend: Clarity
5. “We are entitled to receive only that which we are prepared to give.”
Oil Blend: Gratitude
6. “The most secure prisons are those we construct for ourselves.”
Oil Blend: Release
7. “This is the final paradox: Only by embracing our mortality can we be happy in the time we have. The intensity of our connections to those we love is a function of our knowledge that everything and everyone is evanescent. Our ability to experience pleasure requires either a healthy denial or courageous acceptance of the weight of time and the prospect of ultimate defeat.”
Oil Blend: Acceptance
8. “As long as we measure others and ourselves by what we have and how we look, life is inevitably a discouraging experience, characterized by greed, envy, and a desire to be someone else.”
Oil Blend: Abundance
9. “The process of learning consists not so much in accumulating answers
as in figuring out how to formulate the right questions.”
Oil Blend: GeneYus
