Bridging gaps, storing and releasing value

As I have mentioned, I am in the process of finding some additional work and tonight I spent a few hours filling in a pre-component of a pysch test I will have on Friday. I have never done one before and I am interested in what will come up or, if I will be immediately arrested for being divergent.

I don't really get my hopes up for anything in particular but I am kind of hoping that I will have a chance for this position because it sounds like an environment I could do well in and have increasing opportunity based on the skills I already possess. They are hiring me on a narrow set but once in I am pretty certain that I will be able to leverage other skill groups. One of the benefits of having a wide range of experience is being able to identify potential and gaps in potential more easily, which is a skill in itself.

Personally though I am hoping to build a better economic position in the real world, just in case this crypto thing takes longer than expected to become a potential revenue stream. I have no time frame on that future but I am quite confident that at some point, it is going to make a significant positive impact on many people's lives, despite the current state of affairs.

We are getting into an interesting area of investment though as it is at the point where people are now questioning whether it will survive at all. Not just Steem either, it is a bit of a gamble on many projects. Ever since Steem climbed from 6 cents in March 2017 people have been wishing it would fall again so they can buy in. Now, many of those same people are concerned about the survival of it at 35 cents.

It is interesting though because it is all about risk management and willingness to expose oneself to loss which is something that those that bought in at 6 cents did. People forget that it didn't start that low, steem was up at 4.30 in August 2016 and many users at that time were living it up under low competition and high earnings only to lose faith when the price crashed, glad they got out in time, only to later complain that they didn't have the support later. I don't blame them, it is all part of the game.

We do tend to take a lot of this economic life seriously even though we are trying to break free from it in various ways. Many of us take jobs we don't like with little chance of ever having more than enough to service our debts because we fear being destitute. If we only ever consumed what we really needed for survival, a great deal of the jobs in this world a irrelevant and pointless.

Isn't it funny that we are willing to work at pointless jobs that provide no real satisfaction, make other people wealthy and don't cover our own wants for our own future? The system is gamified and most of us are losing. I was reading that only 13 percent of people are positive about their work, that means 83 percent are neutral or less. Not great odds to work satisfaction with considering the payoff potential for most employment is not significantly high considering the work put in.

One of the things that I am hoping to do when I get another job is consistently use any excess funds I might be able to squirrel away to invest into myself and my future. I figure that when I add 40+ hours to my already quite full schedule I will have to rely on buying into more than earning from Steem in the short term. That is okay, I don't mind taking small amounts of liquidity off the market when I can. What I am concerned with is interacting with people here, friends I have come to care about.

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy and I haven't been able to interact as well as I would like either in comments or in chats. For me, a large part of the experience of Steem is the community and network around me (or, I am around) as each person is a node at the end of a bridge that holds a wealth of experience and value in attitude or thought. Considering we are all linked at various levels of Steem to, it is something I can't imagine my colleagues in a new workplace to understand.

But yeah, we are getting to a point where some people are going to take some risks with their investments and some people are going to continue to hold off and, it might swing either way. If it swings to zero those who risk will be upset and those who didn't thankful, if it swings up the investors will be happy while those who didn't may have regrets. I see that the chance of swinging up is high enough to put a little excess in but, not betting the farm on it.

It always sucks to lose an investment but it also feels good to make gains. I wonder how many people have exercise equipment or gadgets in their garage they bought from TV shop or similar that at the time of purchase they felt was an investment in their future well-being. How many have bought a new phone that replaces the old one with no noticeable benefits, a car that held a new car smell for a few months, a fancy dinner where the taste and memory faded moments later?

Not everyone has this options in this world of course but given a little excess, most of us look for luxury and shortcut over real investment into ourselves. There is a difference between spending on a hobby that promotes passivity over activity and increasingly, we are looking for passive.

Even in our investment in Steem we are looking to maximize through passive revenue streams rather than active engagement in the community. Which one has more value? That is up to an individual to decide based on their view of where they want the future to be. How many skills have you developed by passive consumption?

For me, financial freedom gives me the resources to do more, not less and at the moment my resources of time and money holding me back in the things I would like to do so, I have to use the skills available to me to actively increase my resources so that it can provide enough to take the steps I want to take in this world. It could easily become a rat race position but, as long as I am aware enough to choose well and invest well, getting lost in the system is not much of a risk.

No one wants to be a number in the system to be quantified for value, they want to be valuable as a human but, a human doing what? The part of the psych test I did tonight was a self-evaluation of skills and wants and what was overwhelmingly obvious to me is that I have more to offer the world than to sit on the couch and consume the creations of others. Sure, no one might put much value in my offerings but, does that matter?

People talk about stores of value but when it comes down to it, the greatest and most important store of value in this world is our own potential to create. It was never designed to lay dormant and passive, it was made to be released and distributed, in my opinion.

Anyway, that is enough of a ramble to clear my head and as I have more work and testing tomorrow, for now, goodnight.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]