Two things stand out after last night's session:

1) Bet/folding the river. I had a medium (Q high) flush on a paired board and I bet the river. I got raised. Big raise too. I bet $26; he made it $100 more. I JUST COULDN'T FOLD. Sure enough, he had a boat. But he overplayed a lot of hands and liked to bully, so I talked myself into calling.

2) Table selection. It's not easy to do at $1/$2 when the room is full. You go where the floor seats you. I saw a friend at another table. He got there about the same time I did. Two hours later, he racks up $400 profit and leaves. Another friend shows up an hour later and sits at the same table. He racks up a couple hours later and is up $1,100. Yep. Meanwhile, I'm moving between up $75 and down $50 for most of the night until finally tripling up and being up $300 for the night before cashing out up $175 after 6 hours.

properly adjusting to a fish, especially, again, with betsizing. also, i call too much when it seems mathematically correct, but is so clearly a valuebet almost 100% of the time. some people just dont have a certain bluff range.
giving too much credit to obvious fish, and try to outsmart them.
tilting, of course, but this is mainly online.
trying to look smart, whereas it would be better to keep a low profile.
playing when up and quitting when behind.
boy, i have many leaks thinking about it...

If you think the other table is easy money compared to your table, then simply ask for a table change.

i have a stigma: that seat/table was hot and is just as likely to cool off and my seat that has been cold is just as likely to heat up. so i tend to stay in one seat for a while.

My biggest leak is probably not playing slow enough. I should take a little more time to think before acting.

I think this is a very common leak for even many 2+2ers.

Table selection is about finding the softest opponents, not the "hot seat."

Grunch:

First thing that comes to mind when I read your post is you need to be b/folding instead of c.calling those sets on 4 card straights. People are usually showdown monkeys and wont bet much but a straight in that spot. They WILL however call you down with way worse.

Disagree with this a lot. There are a lot of player specific situations where you can overbet the crap out of top pair for a lot of value and other spots against different player types where you can pot control with top 2.

I think these types of generalities are useful when originally learning fundamentals of the game but in order to move up and be successful in poker you need to be able to judge each situation on its own merits. Listening to things like this is one of the biggest reasons players at the lower limits get stagnant games and never get any better.

every hand you get regardless of table/seat hot/cold etc. is a unique, statistically independent event.

this has done wonders for my mindset, specifically with regards to patience.

I agree.

Top pair/top kick is a HUGE HAND vs a fish that's going to call down 3 streets with worse.

I see so many fish get let off the hook on the river because an average player is scared the fish might have hit two pair and then they miss out on 50.00 to 150.00 more of extra value.

Every hand, every matchup vs villian/s is unique.

As I am starting to really love this game and analyze every situation I am in I've realized that.

I used to think poker was something like 75% skill/25% luck....lol, there's hardly any luck involved at all.