Happiness is a matter of perspective and then...

...you die of from overdosing on the drug that "raised your consciousness" to believe that happiness is a matter of perspective in the first place.

...you get food poisoning from food that you dug out of a garbage bin, because you're homeless.  Because you didn't want a "crappy job" in the interim of pursuing your dream job because "it would make you unhappy."

...you meet someone with a "cynical" (read: realistic) worldview that WON'T subscribe to yours and won't allow you to force your worldview onto him/her.

Honestly, if there's one brand of stupidity that drives me up a wall, it's the "Namaste/happiness is a state of mind" attitude. (To quote Jason Segal, "Namaste here any longer than I have to!")  I got a full blast of this when I was still associated with Jen Friel.  Yes, THAT Jen Friel.  The corporate lapdog who pretty much joined the happy-happy cult after her mentalist boyfriend dumped her on her ass. (Or might as well have; it was a huge blow to her ego to find out that she wasn't enough for him.  Or any other guy for that matter, as indicated with her misadventures with "Romeo."  I'd guess that he didn't want old Brickhead publishing his every move on her crappy blog, but I digress.)

But anyway, my big sin against the happy-happy cult?  I got a crappy job.  In the middle of a recession where you take what you can get.  It was a two-week contract assignment, so it wasn't anything I couldn't endure, and the pay was good.  Not only that, I'd felt a certain sense of pride.  I'd rather have a job than sponge off the government in unemployment checks, even if the job was a crappy one.

I told Jen about it (at the time, TNTML was just starting, and the group who wrote with her was pretty tight), and, long story short, she was pissed that I had *gasp* gotten a JOB.

Why?  Because, long story short, it wasn't my DREAM job, and because I wasn't going to be "happy-happy" all the time.  At least for the two weeks I had it.  See, that was the weird thing about Jen vs. me:  No matter how shitty my situation is, I know it isn't going to last.  It gets better.  Jen, on the other hand and for all of her "happy-happy" faux optimism garbage, was so scared shitless of a minor setback that anything that might bring her the SLIGHTEST bit of discomfort was viewed as an anathema.  The fact that I didn't have a problem embracing a small bit of temporary pain eagerly for adequate compensation challenged the fuck out of her worldview.

But it also revealed something else to me about Jen:  She had never actually had to work a day in her life.  I've noticed that the "namaste" crowd consists of 1) People who come from rich families who can fall back on them anytime they don't have a job, 2) People who are trying to bury some SERIOUS trauma in their lives, or 3) some combination of the previous two.  And in the case of Jen, there's also that Hollywood mentality.  Take Jen out of LA and put her in New England, and she bitches and moans until you put her back.  Evidentally, they're too bourgeois up there for her tastes.  Too eager to go to college, get married, and get 9 to 5 jobs and can still be happy with their lives.  Keep in mind that if the pilot ever does become a TV series, the middle class will be the people who end up paying her salary.

Hmm... this was supposed to be a rant more on the "namaste" philosophy, but it's starting to turn into a rant against Jen Friel.  And to be fair, no other member of the happy-happy cult was ever as far-gone as Jen was.  Suffice to say, I'd rather address a problem than pretend it doesn't exist, and it annoys me no end when the "namaste" group tries to force me to do otherwise.  I believe a problem has a solution, and that's the extent of my optimism.