Good for you. Glad to see you back.

Love and respect yourself first. If you do that, you will be able to avoid unnecessary drama. Manage your expectations of other people because you can't control them, but you can control the amount of interaction you have with them. Not everyone you meet should stay in your life. Once you figure out who they are and what they add or subtract it’s up to you to either allow them to stay or move on from them.

Yes, one has to love oneself first.

Indeed, I will remove anyone who creates unwarranted, unprovoked, mental or physical turmoil in my life. And that includes childhood friends. Life is short that's what makes it precious, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let somebody else ruin it and bring me down to their level.

The older I get, the less I value the opinions of anyone else, unfavorable or otherwise . . . . in the end, what others think of us has little bearing whatsoever on who we really are. Generally people tend to be very wrong about judging someone else's character, especially when they do not know them well, and often even when they do.
Only we ourselves know deep down where we came from and where we have been, what our deeds or misdeeds are . . . . I'll let myself be the judge of that long before giving weight to someone else's opinion.

I keep a framed print on my wall, by my computer, so i will see it often...
I will not beg you for your time or try to convince you to chose me, the world is too big and I have too much to offer.
It seems like you are there now.

Eventually you will find someone who appreciates you

I completely agree with you. After getting out of a very toxic, emotionally abusive marriage, I am much more aware of attempts to manipulate me and much less tolerant of it.
I am awesome and don’t want to waste time or energy on anyone who doesn’t appreciate that.

Yes you do it's just so damn hard to find especially where you are a lot of guys with little respect for women there in the south. Have traveled a bit over the country try smaller state in mideast with more educated population. You are a attractive woman professional and intelligent should have no problem finding someone who respects and appreciates you

Diligent determined energetic effort in our careers is not always appreciated and some around us are simply blood sucking lazy or worse thieves getting away with damaging our lives

I got no problems with that. you might cut the militancy down by about half, but I say that growing up as a man. It may be your experience that speaking aggressively like that gets you the most consistent and dependable results. I'm open enough about my views to allow debate and the possibility that I'm wrong. I'm even fair game for mine just not being the chosen side. You still have to be open enough for constructive criticism just to meet general social rules of friendliness. Or you lose out on viewpoints you may have not considered.