1 Year on Steemit. My first anniversary!

Well fellas, I just received a really cool badge from @steemitboard, a badge that I've been waiting for quite some time now. It turns out to be my Steemit / Steem birthday today!

Time flies, that's for sure. I found out about Steemit and steem accidentally. I still remember killing my time in one of those silly Facebook pages back in December 2017. My favorite part though was reading the comments. Just like here on our platform. It is really interesting to see each individual's view...

And while most of those comments were mostly funny, there was a specific one that triggered my attention. It was actually a reply to comment and it was something like: "Are you still answering to that trash? You should have been registered to Steemit a long time ago. At least there you get paid for blogging."

Steemit? What the hell is that?

So I immediately made a research on the web to see what this was all about. Note that I was completely uninformed as to what cryptocurrencies were. So I had to do further research to understand what crypto, currency, blockchain are. I remember spending a whole evening reading article after article and in the end I was still confused...And I think it was normal. It was like trying to explain quantum physics to a 10 year old. Yeah...I know...don't say it....

But I thought to myself : Since people are already doing it, how hard can it be? And the very next moment I applied. I remember receiving an email where more or less was saying that I will be notified when I am approved. I thought that it would be a matter of 2 or 3 days until I will receive the confirmation...but that confirmation arrived...almost a month later. I don't really know if that's how it works nowadays too, but back then it was really frustrating.

No more wining...I was in!

Exploring a new platform can be chaotic. You've all been there so you know the feeling. And since I didn't follow anyone my feed was empty. Nothing. Nada. I started exploring the hot and trending pages as they were the only available options and.....

Holy fuck I'm gonna get rich!!!

Every single post on those pages had a potential payout from 200$ to 2000$. And I was like: "I must be dreaming" 2000$ for a single post? Needless to remind you that steem was sitting at 5$ - 6$ back then..."I'm gonna solve my financial problem here...piece of cake"!

I am glad things weren't as I originally thought

I wrote my introductory post (which was a fail from every aspect) and started following "the wrong people." MISTAKE!!! You have to try hard. Really hard to get anyone’s upvote and whales are no exception to this. Even though I have to admit that some of them are really cool guys and extremely helpful. And this is probably the most valuable lesson I’ve learnt during my early days on the platform.

Interact and follow those you have similar interests with

Steemit is a community platform. And communities are the most important thing around. They can educate you, promote you and you'll soon have the feeling you belong somewhere. There are dozens around, you just need to know where to look.

It has been a bumpy ride so far, but I love every second of it

As a beginner I used to spend lots of hours on the platform. It was like an addiction. It still is actually...
I wanted to meet new people, to build my network to evolve...It didn't matter if I was tired from my day job. The moment I logged in, it was a brand new world right before my eyes. Every day a new challenge.

Exactly one year later, and I am still here

While many of those I used to interact with, or even admire just stopped blogging or even worse they powered down and are gone, this bear market helped me and I assume many others too, to build my account a lot faster. Actually as a beginner I was praying for a second chance. I remember saying :"Can't steem go back down to 0.07$ just for a few hours? I will load bags of it!" So I guess while others couldn't accept the fact that they would blog for a few cents when the bear woke up, I became even more persistent. So, persistence and a little bit of investment and the result is 7.5K SP. It was unimaginable for me a year back. Steem's price wouldn't allow me to build my account if it remained at those levels. So I guess I was also lucky!

I feel really lucky

Not only because I see the efforts I put in every day paying off, but mostly because I was fortunate enough to meet people who were by my side from day one till now and showed me the right way.
I am grateful guys. You know who you are...

My message

Being around for a year now made me understand the potential Steem blockchain has. I consider myself to be a believer. And while I know that all of you who are still here, are believers too we must all work together to spread the word about our blockchain to those who still have no clue...And I am sure that if everyone does their part on what he is good at, then steem will succeed big time!

Thanks for reading!!