“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face,” said First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. “You must do the thing in which you think you cannot do.”
This quote on the inner jacket sleeve of Dr. Gordon Livingston’s book,_ The Thing You Think You Cannot Do ,_ spells out the book’s central idea. It also suggests questions that might arise in most readers’ minds. What if we didn’t feel fear? How much more could we accomplish for ourselves and our society, if we could just push past our fears?
By the book’s end, the reader gains a deeper understanding of how Livingston sees fear as well as courage. This analysis empowers readers to work at controlling their anxieties and strive toward more courageous and certainly more self-fulfilling actions.
Popular culture urges us to live in moment and grab ephemeral pleasures. Happiness is immediate, easy to obtain and easy to control. However, these actions often end up like an injection of Botox. The user may get rid a few wrinkles for a while, but it doesn’t stop aging. The wrinkles return.
Packed with insights and illuminating examples, Livingston’s book does tend to meander. At times, he strays a little too far off the trail with personal stories and examples. […]
Aside from this and a few other stories that don’t quite hit the mark, this book is sound. It should inspire readers to push past their fears and take the high road that leads to greater happiness and fulfillment. “The journey begins within,” as Livingston tells us, and he offers us a good map to find it.