I applaud your piece and challenge your assumptions (however I’ll offer only one example for brevity’s sake).

I applaud your suggestion that to become an observer of oneself and others – operating with restraint is preferable. (Having been raised by “Yankee” parents in New England – restraint was the name of the game.) In my spiritual practice I have cultivated an observer to look at myself “mercilessly” and without judgment – for nearly 50 years. And yes, within the set of observational frameworks magic happens – a good observation – if you have followed Buffet’s example from his statement.

The challenge stemming from your statement:

“So that smile on your face is the positive energy you need to transfer to the next miserable soul trying to displace their negative energy onto you.”

If you follow Warren Buffets’ philosophy with regards to his statement, then smiling as a defense against someone’s negativity is a pointless activity – because “you don’t care”.

Then you write on - “Your restraint and collective nature will transfer so much energy so fast that their toxic heads will spin.” To me this reveals that by taking up a posture of smiling with the intent to transfer positive energy to those that are expressing negativity infers that you need to do this to prevent yourself from suffering. Is that correct? What about not caring?

There seems to be a trend in eliminating “toxic people” from our lives. And while there is some value in that. Is there any value in loving those toxic people and tolerating some of their behaviors while setting limits with other toxic behaviors? It just seems to me that there is a value in having some people who are toxic around me as a spiritual practice to find middle ground of compassionate tolerance at the very least. In other words, I can love the person and set healthy boundaries around toxic behaviors when I’m not up for a long harangue or vent from them.

Too much?