in search of meaning 'negativity'

i saw a meme, it said..

"the less you respond to negativity the more peaceful your life becomes"

this is a true statement.. however, imo the statement does not stand alone-- it's only a partial truth

sometimes negative crap is present on a continual basis and in order to dissolve "it" is to face the underlying root cause(s) inside the situation or the individual...

e.g. if i'm feeling easily irritated then there is something inside of me that needs to be dealt with.....  so in this instance if i do not respond then i am allowing the negativity to fill up like a glass of water and at some point it will overflow and then what? explode? at that point i would be worse off than before i began ignoring the negativity and essentially ignoring my inner world-- as the root cause would be buried under all the layers of frustrations that i pushed down in order to take on the persona of "peace"..

as far as a negative person showing up and brushing them off is concerned this meme is perfect.. 

but what if you have a poopy neighbor that continually causes issues.. you gonna ignore it and that person goes away? not exactly how it works.. it can work, but not always.. so i guess it depends on the level of negativity that person is creating, if what they are doing is a direct action towards you personally and you ignore it once and it happens again then it's apparent that you'll have to deal with that person in a manner for which they stop believing they have a right to rule over you and create problems in your life......... 

the basic concept is this: everything is relative to the players and the information of each individual situation.. 

one thing i know to be true is that the longer one ignores their personal life lessons (maybe negativity showed up to get your attention) the more difficult the lessons become..

peace~