Happy Never After: why the happiness fairytale is driving us mad (and how I flipped the script)

Jill Stark was living the dream. She had a coveted job as a senior journalist, she was dating a sports star, and her first book had just become a bestseller. After years of chasing the fairytale ending, she'd finally found it. And then it all fell apart.

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Jill Stark was living a dream. She had a coveted job as a senior journalist, she was dating a sports star, and she'd just achieved a lifelong ambition by publishing a book, which was rapidly becoming a bestseller. After years of crippling anxiety, striving for the fairytale ending, it finally seemed she'd found her ticket to contentment.

But then it all started to go wrong. Getting everything she'd ever wanted plunged Jill into the darkest period in her life, where she struggled with acute anxiety and fell into a deep depression.

The experience forced her to ask if we've been sold a lie. Could the relentless pursuit of happiness actually be making us miserable? Why, in a western world with more opportunity, choice and wealth than ever before, are so many of us depressed, anxious and medicated?

In this forensic examination of our age of anxiety, Stark explores how we can unplug, keep calm, and find meaning in a frenetic world designed to drive us mad. With humour, insight, and razor-sharp wit, she tells of her own struggles with a lifetime of anxiety against the backdrop of a stressed-out modern world, where many are drowning in a sea of digital distraction and white noise.

We're all looking for answers. We all want the happy ever after. What would happen if we stopped chasing, stayed still, and found calm amid the chaos?