Honestly the only way I can describe this book is that it feels very arrogant. The author - whose online presence only tells me that he writes poorly received self help books - begins by telling us why we should be listening to him, as an unknown author writing non fiction should. Except all that he has to say is that he's recovered from unnamed, undescribed struggles, and that he's read a lot of philosophy and psychology in light of that.

Throughout the book he never says anything to make himself seem more authoritative. He never names a single philosopher he's read, despite blatantly using their ideas, just repackages them with his own name. This leaves the reader with nowhere to go from this book, no helpful concepts to look further into. Jeremy Bentham, if any readers are wondering. The first couple chapters are this author's uncredited take on Bentham's calculus.

This isn't helped by the constant use of "I think", "I feel", "I believe", making you wonder why you're reading this guy's private diary. That said, if there were any intentional looking personal moments in the book, I'd enjoy that lack of certainty. Somehow, this author tries to neither appeal to higher authority, or invoke personal anecdotes. Or even anecdotes from other people. It's all just someone you know nothing about telling you what he thinks the meaning of life is.

I'm not exaggerating, by the way. There's a chapter on the meaning of life. Why that exists in a self help book about unlocking your inner child is beyond me - by that point the lack of a driving force to each disjointed chapter had made me start to skim read, and I still don't think I missed anything because each sentence is repeated in very slightly different words two or three times. When I did manage to pay attention, the author told me I should be proselytising all I've learnt to the people who hurt me. I wanted to scream at him that not everyone in the world lives the same lives.

Due to the author's refusal to tell us anything about himself, every point was described as what "we" feel, and what "we" should do, as if his highly specific pre-therapy viewpoint was in fact universal. For example, he tells us that at present we're not acting playfully because we feel guilty about doing anything that doesn't have worldwide importance. Honestly, I have no clue what sort of life the author could lead for global change to be on his radar. I couldn't tell if he sounded like a powerful businessman, or just someone with moral OCD. This would probably be a more helpful book if he was open about either possibility, and wrote it to people in the same situation. But he genuinely seems to think everyone has that worry.

Long story short, this might appeal if you're a neurotic yet detatched male CEO. If not, look up the reading list for an intro to moral philosophy course. You'll learn more and have more of a grasp on what each author's bias might be.