"Permanent Happiness: The Only Way to Find Peace, Joy, and Your Life-Given Purpose by Iyabo Ojikutu, MD is an inspiring book that highlights the author’s observation that permanent happiness comes from inner peace. Without this peace, our happiness will only last temporarily, because of the many external influences that are constantly changing in our lives. Every human being is responsible for their own happiness and they can achieve this goal by making sure that their spiritual and physical life lines are flowing in a straight line parallel to each other. Our spiritual health is related to our physical well being and we must nourish our souls the same way that we nourish our bodies. We also are all born with God-given gifts and it is up to us to use them wisely in order to positively influence people who are around us.

I enjoyed reading Permanent Happiness: The Only Way to Find Peace, Joy, and Your Life-Given Purpose by Iyabo Ojikutu, MD, because it was very positive and uplifting. I agreed with the author’s reflections that lasting happiness could only be achieved by finding inner peace. We need to let go of all the negative and toxic practices, thoughts, people, and lifestyles that are bringing us down. We have to seek and find our inner peace and not rely on others to make us happy. Negativity needs to be replaced with positivity and this will allow us to change our thoughts and actions to be more valuable and empowering. I do believe there is a mind-body connection and I love the author’s quote that says “worry is poison to the soul", because it is one hundred percent true. Constant worrying and anxiety can cause havoc in our physical bodies and it is up to us to change this way of thinking. I believe this empowering book will help those people that need a positive change in life, and the refreshing advice that the author offers will be very valuable to those seeking pure inner peace and permanent happiness."

“Permanent Happiness” by Iyabo Ojikutu, MD, is a beautifully written guide to help you live a peaceful life. Tying together the link between our physical and spiritual lives, Dr. Ojikutu offers three steps to help us become more peaceful and happy beings. In this work, she shares a great deal of her own personal experiences, of which many readers will be able to relate. This includes discussing the end of her marriage, single parenting, having a stressful career, and re-entering the dating world. Peace and faith resonate through her words. While finding a great deal of useful information that will aid me on my path to happiness, I also discovered that just by immersing myself into these pages, I felt peaceful and relaxed. 

I appreciate that this book is not written in a textbook style. The author blends her lessons in with her personal experiences. Readers will want to do some journaling about their thoughts as they read. Women going through divorce will really appreciate her thoughts on healing during this time. She also offers sound advice on parenting and dating for teens. While it would seem that what she discusses is pure common sense, for some reason people need to hear what she is saying and actually process it. In addition to her own personal experiences, Dr. Ojikutu also has a wealth of experience in dealing with a variety of stressful issues that can result in stress and lack of peace. Her common sense approach to dealing with these issues will help readers either avoid these experiences or learn how to escape from them peacefully so that they can move on to being happier, healthier individuals. 

I would love to see “Permanent Happiness” by Iyabo Ojikutu, MD, as a selection for a reader’s group, whether secular or faith based. In addition to benefiting from reading it, readers will also gain a great deal of insight with shared discussions. I think it would also be a great gift for young ladies who are in their teens or young adult years. It would be awesome for these young ladies to start following the steps to permanent happiness so that they can learn to seek permanent happiness while they are young, and unburdened with emotional baggage. I look forward to entering into this New Year with the resolution of following the steps to seek permanent happiness! 

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.