Dr. Ojikutu is a medical doctor who has become convinced that human beings can become permanently happy if they work continuously on pursuing peace in the spiritual, physical, and emotional realms. She offers advice from her life experience, her medical training, and her spiritual understanding to help her readers find their real, healthy, fulfilling goals in life and become happy, truly and permanently happy, in the pursuit of those goals. Her advice is generally sound, and while it clearly comes from a devoutly Christian perspective, is applicable to many religious traditions – quite similar perspectives on human happiness and how to achieve it can be found in works by authors ranging from Buddhist monks to Sufi saints to secular psychiatrists, and more. The religious coloring may be different, but the essential advice is the same, and in this case, she does go out of her way to say that it doesn’t really matter what religion you practice as long as you seek peace and happiness in a loving way.
While there isn’t much that’s really unique in PERMANENT HAPPINESS, it is solid, reasonable, and well-presented. It is evident that Dr. Ojikutu speaks with both a kind, loving heart and a sharp, intelligent mind, and her writing is approachable and clear. She does. to some extent, overuse emphases like italics and bold text, which give the book something of a breathlessly enthusiastic air, but no doubt the reader’s own personality will determine whether they find this appealing or exhausting. Her worldview, while open-minded and kindly, does tend to be a bit conservative in places, as when she advises women to hold back and let a man they’ve had a first date with be the one to make contact with them afterwards – this is not only a bit problematic for same-sex relationships (which she does not really address one way or the other) but also somewhat hard on shy heterosexual males, who are also generally expected to do all the asking for a first date, too. Still, there’s much of value here, and it’s worth a read.
PERMANENT HAPPINESS is a guidebook that includes much common-sense advice, presented in a warm, generous, and enthusiastic manner.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader