Finding Happiness In The Dark by Kenneth Liddane
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Have you ever said
“I WILL BE HAPPY IF…”?

Did you ever achieve that? And if so, what happened next? Are you living happily ever after, or did you set new goals and update your “I will be happy if…” statement?

In this book, I address the fact that the search for happiness is flawed! Happiness is unique to each individual, it is ever-changing and conditional.

By searching for happiness, I am actually just reminding myself that I am not happy now! After all, why would I search for happiness if I am already happy?

I can tell myself that I am fine, but that doesn’t change how I actually feel, and how I actually feel directly impacts how I perceive the world around me, which affects how I think and behave.

So why do I endure this darkness while I try and persuade myself and others that everything is OK?

Finding Happiness In The Dark directly links our thoughts, feelings, emotions and behaviours with the same core instincts and drives as every living thing on this planet.

With this insight, you can see how unhelpful thoughts, feelings, emotions and behaviours develop as we try to navigate through life’s challenges both internally and externally.

By considering the knowledge, skills and possible supports highlighted in this book, you will see that you no longer need to avoid, suppress or endure any part of your true self.

All aspects of your natural self are valuable, and by learning to realise your full potential, you can utilise all of the resources that are at your disposal, and become better able to face any challenge and life experience that comes your way.

Let Finding Happiness In The Dark help you emerge from the darkness,
so happiness has nowhere to hide!

What are you waiting for?

What would you be willing to do to become a happier person?

My favorite sections were the ones that discussed why it might not be the best idea to make chasing happiness a goal in and of itself. They were filled with examples of how fleeting this emotion can be and how strongly our perceptions of it can be influenced by any number of factors, from the mood one woke up with that day to the opinions of those around them. This wasn’t to say that happiness doesn’t provide useful information at times, only that the author felt there were more accurate and meaningful ways to keep track of how one is doing and what, if anything, they wish to improve upon.

This book would have benefited from another round of editing because of how wordy and repetitive the writing in it could be at times. It could have been edited down tightly to novella length or kept the same size if it had included more details about the mental exercises and psychological terms the author was discussing. I would have been pleased with either option, but my attention did wander while reading certain passages that over-explained the same points more than once even though I was quite interested in the premise in general.

The questions left at the end of each chapter for readers to quietly ponder were helpful. I appreciated how open-ended they were. Not only did their lack of assumptions about how a reader might answer them make them easy to answer, they also revealed parts of me to myself that I’d never really spent much time exploring before. It was rewarding to have the opportunity to get to know myself a little better there.

Finding Happiness In The Dark was a thought-provoking read.