Assume The Best in Others and Yourself

I've been doing this thing where I assume the best in people, including me. 

Sometimes I wonder if I assume too much goodness.  For instance I have a few friends who rarely call me.  I pretty much always initiate anything and they are bad at getting back to me.  In the past I would have wondered what was wrong with them and then what was wrong with me.  But now I've been telling myself things like, "Your friends are busy, they love you, they just have stressful lives right now and no time."  In short it makes me feel like I have way more friends than I probably actually do. 

I even find myself talking about my friends and then find myself saything things like, "well, I guess they are a friend I don't see much, or an aquaintence."  But, you know what, I haven't been feeling bad about this.  I set up things with my frineds when I can and when things don't work out, I assume everyone meant the best. 

It kind of boils down to assuming people like me, even if I have no evidence to really support it.  It's extremely relaxing.  I do sometimes find myself wondering, "why didn't so and so email/call/text me back?"  But then I've been instead saying things like, "oh they are busy/stressed/depressed/awkward/whatever."  I assume there is a perfectly reasonable explanation to why they don't answer. 

Friendship after kids is a complete 180 to friendship during college.  During college I saw my good friends at least once a week, usually more.  It was easy to grab lunch with them, go to their place after classes, get some form of intoxicated with them on the weekends or do some other wholesome activity.  Most of us didn't work much or at all, we had classes and a bunch of time to fill with either studying (study dates!) or socializing. 

Now most of us have full time jobs or full time kids or both and barely have an evening a week to devote to our spouce or significant other.  Or I should say I now have a full time kid and a part time job and lack time, especially weekend time (because I work every weekend).  It was a huge transition and I spent lots of time feeling like people now didn't give a shit about me because I had a kid.  That was delusional.  But I was also full of post partum hormones. 

"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonnet, people like me!"  Has been a fairly recent realization. 

It's also amazing that I can feel extremely imperfect, but still feel extremely valued as a person, this is a new feeling to me.  Like, it's OK if I totally fuck up in a social situation, I'm still worth something, what?  Crazy!  And that it's OK to try to reconnect with an old friend/aquaintence even if I've ignored the relationship mostly for the last few years.  And it's also ok if not everyone likes me and I don't like everyone.  I've had to let a few relationships go too, because they just weren't worth it.  Doesn't mean they won't work in the future. 

OK, too the normies out there, this probably seems like elementary stuff, but for me, this is a new concept. 

I think it's called self esteem.  I think I'm finally developing it.