My Steem Journey So Far - DEC 2017 - MAR 2019

Source

Unlike a lot of people who pay special attention to dates, such as dates of special events in their life, for example dates they were employed, met the love of their lives, when the first president of United States bought his first Mercedes Benz, knowing the exact date, time and places these things occured to them. I'm not one of those, I hardly keep a ton of those informations, though there are dates embedded to the back of my head that I can never forget, such as birthdays of my family members, mine obviously, probably my graduation date, and the day I found out about steem, December 28 2017, and ever since, I've never been more proud to have a date to remember.

I remember what @fisteganos told me that day, in his words, Do you love to write? make at least one quality post per day, and you will earn. I said, What?, where when how?, he said you can start right now, go to www.steemit.com, sign up, and tell me your username..., sorry not sorry I was also part of the users who were motivated to signing up based on the former ad banner at the front page of steemit, which was POST BLOG AND EARN. Whether I misinterpreted that or that really was the message, is not the point of this post, but bear in mind, I had no knowledge of what a blockchain was, nor did I have any idea about cryptocurrency.

Before I proceed, there's a post I made few days ago that will give you a vivid understanding about my background with technology titled Technology and me, and no its not about me being a programmer or an engineer.
As an inquisitive tech-lover with a lot of time, and an extreme anti-social media(Facebook) person, I began to engross myself in understanding the FAQ's about the system. The fact that a world had begun where likes could turn to upvotes which only did not provide a way to earn but also a way to measure you level of feedback on a post totally had my attention, I was hungry to know more.

I made my introductory post, I think it was one of the worst, yet I had users welcome me with comments and upvotes, 7 days later, a reward was ready to be claimed, 1 SBD was 8$ or thereabout, so I had to test that it was not some scammy site that one would never be able to make a withdrawal from. I made my first withdrawal, I received the notification in my bank balance, and nothing was the same from then. Steem became alive in me, and gradually every knowledge I've amassed over the years about the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and Steem itself began from then.

Oh my, there are geniuses on Steemit, I saw prolific writers who I dreamt of writing as good as, I saw technology analysts, I saw programmers, artists, I saw people who had a passion in sharing their lives experiences, and you know what was more awesome? The fact that I could reach out to them, be responded to and connect with them. This made me read and share millions of words in 2018, it became for me, a lifestyle.

I love to write, I write a lot of poetry, technology, experiences, fiction and short stories, but my writing compared to other users I looked up to here were nothing besides theirs, or at least that was what I thought, but guess what, I burnt myself out soon enough in trying to be like them, after sometime, I made some real life changes you can find in this post.

Fast forward to now, a lot of changes have occured, a lot of growth have happened and a lot of realizations have been made both in my life, knowledge, understanding and use of the steem blockchain. I have personally connected with a lot of people, I have realised that I don't have to be like any writer, I could always learn from them but my uniqueness is my strength, and so is everyone's, so writing like me is paramount.

I've witnessed tremendous growth in the Steem ecosystem since I joined steemit, proving a constantly developing and enthusiastic community, I watched the steem currency price dip from $7 till what it is now, I've seen tremendous effort in the community and talented people in trying to add their own quota of value in promotion and development to make sure the steem blockchain is sustainable and globally adoptable, a dream come true for many, I've seen myself become part of something, investing my mind and soul everyday. For me, a day on steem keeps the doctors away lol.

A lot of 2018 helped me realise there was a world where I could earn, invest, connect and do what I love to do through the steem blockchain, its 2019, and there's a new world where anyone can also achieve these same things, even by playing games - oh have you heard of drugwars and Steemmonsters, the hottest games on steem right now? and so much more.

Honestly I would love to continue, it's really hard to convey my life so far on steem in one post. There are so many aspects I'm yet to touch, there are awesome communities, people and dapps I would love to write about, but for now, I will end this here.

Thank you for your attention, kind regards.