What a lovely Saturday morning it is! In commemoration of such a fine day I thought I would spend a little time to evaluate my account and to thank those of you who have made my time here on Steemit so enjoyable.

There's a lot going on in my life, what with starting a new career in web development and having a new baby girl on the way, so there's plenty of stuff for me to do -- but still, I spend at least a couple of hours every day on Steemit, doing my best to create what I would consider "quality content", commenting on evocative and thought-provoking posts, curating the content of others in the community, and being an ambassador for Steemit across other social networks.

Steemit is my favorite social network / content sharing platform. The community is diverse in thought and more intelligent on average than places like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit; there's an incentive to play nice, and I think that tends to bring out the better nature of people who might otherwise be nasty with their anonymity.

And besides the platform being subjectively amicable to my personal preferences, There is the additional bonus of Steemit providing a substantial financial incentive. So I'd like to take some time to evaluate how my account has changed and to recognize those of you who have come with me on this Steemit journey so far.

You were there for me in my time of need

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I haven't spoken about this, but I'm going through an incredibly challenging time in my life right now. It has to do with my baby that's on the way. Without saying too much, I'll say that it's a day-by-day challenge, and each day that we get through is that much more chance that our baby will turn out ok.

A few weeks ago I started looking for part-time work to supplement my web development job. You see, I graduated from a coding bootcamp last year, which I took out of desperation because our financial situation was dire: what I was doing was not working; our expenses were increasingly greater than our income. It was paycheck paycheck, and every week money was tighter and tighter.

It was a road to disaster. So I went to school to move into a new career. My Steemit account was essential in paying for this. I powered down most of my funds while I went to school in Seattle for a few months. I had to support myself in Seattle living in a group home while my wife stayed in South Eastern Washington, so I was paying double rent ON TOP OF paying for school.

The only reason I was able to get through this was because of Steemit and Steem, so I have all the respect and appreciate in the world for the platform and the cryptocurrency that forms its foundation.

After school I was able to find a job in the field within a month. This was great news because we were absolutely at the end of our expenses and I didn't have any income. That desperation caused me to take a lower starting wage than I probably should have, but I couldn't risk NOT getting the job. It's an entry-level fullstack developer position at a small web development and design firm. It's a good job in that I like who I work with and the work itself is challenging and I grow by leaps and bounds every single week, but the income simply isn't substantial enough.

It felt like I went through all of that hardship to land right back where I was when I started.

So I began looking for a part-time job. I was looking for some remote contract web development work at first, but as time wore on I started opening up to anything, including delivering pizzas and flipping burgers. By this time my wife was pregnant and I simply could NOT tolerate being in such a poor financial position. I had to get ahead of the bills and build up some savings, and I had to do that by getting another job -- any job.

Then, along came Steemit.

I began posting on Steemit again. Firstly, it was a great outlet for my creativity: I'm the kind of person who thinks about things a lot -- my mind is always tooling around different ideas in my head -- and having an outlet for that creativity is helpful on a psychological level. But secondly, I was hoping I could somehow make a part-time level wage from it.

Taking my Steemit account more seriously, I told myself I would post a well-sourced research article or an in-depth treatise or op-ed every morning. I would try to treat Steemit as a part-time job and maybe it would become one. Because, when I thought about it, that's what I really wanted to do -- I didn't want to deliver pizzas or flip burgers, I wanted to create content that I was proud of and felt contributed to the world in some way.

And then I noticed my posts doing better and better. And before I knew it I was making more income posting on Steemit than I was at my new job. My account started growing in every way, and suddenly it seemed like a turning-point in my life: hope was possible now.

For that, I must thank all of you here who follow my account and support me on Steemit. Honestly, you have no idea how grateful I am for every one of you.

I love you guys!

Areas of growth

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Using the SteemWorld app by @steemchiller makes it easy to evaluate your account and see how you're growing.

I'm going to look at the Stats section of the Feed tab and see how things are going.

Steem Power

When I started posting again after school, my SP had dropped from 10,000 all the way down to 500. Over the last month I've been able to increase that to 800. This is great growth considering I have never bought Steem, only ever earned it.

Voting Value

It's nice to see that the value of my vote is actually worth something! At one point, I remember, my vote was worth around $5 at 100%. This was just after the big halving last summer and, as I said before, I had around 10,000 SP, so it was nice to share that around. But even though I don't have as much as I used to, My account when fully charged and at 100% is worth about $0.20. It's nice to see that number go up because it means that I can show others in the community how much I care.

VP ~> 100%

It's almost impossible to keep myself from voting long enough to be back up to 100% lol

I just love curating this community too much.

Followers

Follower count is a good way of judging the growth of your account. If people are following you then you must be doing something right... right?

I have been gaining about 10 followers per day, sometimes more if I have a post that happens to trend. And I'm looking forward to the day that I get to 3000.

That'll be fun!

I've also been making a point of following more people myself. It keeps my feed interesting so I always have new types of content to curate. It also helps me to keep my finger on the pulse of the community, which can aid in what sort of content I decide to make myself.

Reputation

This is one that's been going up FAST.

I know that the higher your reputation is, the harder it gets to grow it.

Just three days ago I Zapped about finally making it to a rep of 68, and just since that time it's gone up by almost 100 points already.

Reaching 70 will be another very exciting milestone.

Voting CSI

I don't really care much about post count or vote count, but the CSI is an important number, I think.

Looking at that can show how involved you are with the rest of the community, and as you can see, even though I upvote almost all of my own posts (not comments), I'm only upvoting myself bout 10% of my total votes.

My self-vote number used to be lower but I've been trying to get my vote power past 50%, so it's been a struggle lol

Shoutouts

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By looking at the awesome donut graph for incoming votes, I can easily see who are the people that are supporting my work most often, so I wanted to take a moment to recognize the top 10 of you here.

The top 4 of you are sharing the number 1 spot, which means you're all upvoting all of my stuff -- THANKS!

@uruiamme

You are a solid dude who is also very active in commenting on my posts. I appreciate your opinion and your support!

@lazzelazer

You don't seem to have been active in posting or commenting for about a month, but you always manage to support my posts. Thanks! Maybe we will hear from you some day.

@coinsilie

I don't know what to say about this account. Possibly part of a bot network? I don't know. There's 0 content whatsoever, and even though they regularly curate my posts, they don't follow anyone.

A mystery.

@ancapwarren

Another account that's gone dark for a few months. You still seem to be active in curating, though. Thanks for the support :D

@fulltimegeek

One of the first people I met on Steemit, @fulltimegeek has become a close friend and confidant. We met almost 2 years ago and I think we've followed each other's work with interest throughout that whole time.

His avatar and profile pics are drawings I did for him years ago when I was doing commissions accepting Steem and SBD as payment.

He was one of my first supporters and to this day I owe him so much for continuing that support. Blessings to you, my friend.

@mathiasian

A semi-active poster. Seems interested in geopolitics and culture. Thanks for your support!

@fulltimeangel

Agent of truth and exposer of lies. I'm always excited when I see @fulltimeangel in my Steemify notifications! I'm so glad to have you around :D

@frankbacon

Another one of my long-time friends here on Steemit. Mr. Frank is a prolific content creator and resteemer. Also leaves some of the dopest old-time memes in the comments. Steem on, my friend!

@treetoptennis

Another one of those accounts that used to post but hasn't for a few months. Maybe we can inspire him to share his thoughts once again? It looks like his content was of the individual liberty / self improvement dint. Thanks for your support!

@steemfeed

Meistro of memes and resteemer of content that I also follow. You seem to have found a suitable hobby in Steemit. Glad to have you around!

Once again: THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

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Not just my most active followers, but anyone who comes to my blog or even participates in the Steemit platform or the Steem blockchain.

You are the foundation of a brand new type of technology that can change not only the way we communicate on the internet, and not just the way we transact with money, but the way that we form an economy.

Steemit is showing us that user-generated tokens are capable of facilitating a whole new type of economy where value is generated by human focus and attention in the most pure sense. And people will be able to become self-sufficient based off of the degree to which they have skin in the game.

You all have skin in the game, and for that you will be rewarded.

Follow me @shayne