Steem and the Journey of a Thousand Miles

in #tenkminnows5 years ago (edited)

"The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet." -- Lao Tzu

@zacktime at Sea World Orlando

Preparing to write my entry for the @steemcommunity 10K Minnows initiative, I looked up the above quote. I wanted to confirm it was a thousand miles (I'd thought it might be ten thousand). To my surprise, I found a translation even more resonant than the one we more commonly see.

Most English speakers say the journey begins with a single step. It's used as motivation to take that first step. But anyone who has tried to do something of real value, something difficult, knows that the challenge lies further down the path. The first steps are exhilarating. The middle bits, when excitement has faded, your goals are still far beyond reach, and obstacles loom - that is when motivation is most needed.

In those times, it's best to remember that the journey begins beneath your own feet.

"Becoming starts with being." Source: my beer

My Steem Journey

I began this Steem account eighteen months ago. My intention was to monetize a blog I was already making for a business I was experimenting with. I never really did that. I poked around a little, made an introduction post, converted a few of my previous blog entries to post here, and followed a few interesting people. I was intrigued at the strange mix of people I found here. It felt like the Wild West. But markdown was awkward, and I realized I would not be comfortable directing my clients to my Steemit blog. Anyway, the side project was winding down, and I was starting a new job. Steemit never became a habit.

Yet I didn't forget it. As the crypto market slid down and down in 2018, I started looking for ways to earn crypto (since I didn't have dispensable income to buy more). Over a Spring Break vacation with my family, I looked into my dormant Steem account. I stumbled across the two "hooks" that ultimately became habit-forming.

A Contest

I discovered @ifc, a fun community which was running a challenge that week to find and post about a "power spot". Since I had a few hours' road trip ahead to one of the greatest power spots I could think of, I entered - and won!

The contest was the hook, but was kept me coming back was community. I'd met a group of people who posted interesting things, showed interest in my work, and offered me opportunities to contribute. This, and the obvious thrill of winning Steem rewards, kept me coming back.

A Flag War

During that week when I was exploring Steem in earnest, a high-profile flag war was going on. I believe Dan Larimer had recently left Steemit Inc, and @berniesanders had a reputation score of (-15), which I didn't know was possible. I was just finding out who these people were. I was intrigued and wanted to know more. I spent hours going down the rabbit hole of various posts and I learned about how staking and the rep scores worked, about witnesses, and quite a bit about the argument over bid bots and reward distribution in general.

It became clear to me that I had a stake in how this whole experiment develops. My own Steem account, as well as the greater Steem community. I began to use my witness votes. I powered up some Steem.

My Aikido Friends

Steemit, the Place to Train

I have come to value the Steem ecosystem very highly. I have invested some money, and even more time. I have never powered down, and I have withdrawn liquid Steem only to buy Steem Monsters, @steembasicincome shares, and other steem things. I have been rewarded with far more than Steem. My reward is a mindset shift, and a set of skills and behaviors cultivated and reinforced by my Steem journey so far.

Investment Mindset

Before Steem, regular incremental savings was an idea, not a practice in my daily life. The simple elegance of requiring me to power up in order to earn reinforced something I already knew: what you get is directly related to what you put in. Seeing my account grow (in STEEM, if not in USD) even as crypto markets fell was motivation to keep producing, even when what I have to offer is imperfect.

Cultivating this investment mindset, and being rewarded for writing, emboldened me to write an article for Medium about the crypto journey in general. I posted it here, too, but it did much better over there.

The Problem With Bitcoin Is You

My Steem Anniversary post also highlighted the growth mindset cultivated by my Steem journey.

Freedom

What I initially perceived, with mixed awe and skepticism, as a Wild West of the internet - was freedom. The real kind, which is inextricably linked with responsibility. Not that everyone here is responsible, but the structure of the blockchain - its rewards, and the fact that it falls to us to build - it reinforces actual freedom in a way I have not seen anywhere else in my adult life.

Bolstered by the thoughtful responses of a variety of people, I began to explore topics I had never addressed before. I feel empowered to question things and stand up for my beliefs. That's what we do here.

Conspiracy!

Not Alone

The Monster In Your Own Heart

Shadow Work

Why Save Humanity?

The Man With Red Eyes

Community

My experience with Steem is that, when used regularly, it reinforces behaviors that promote personal growth. These behaviors include regular productive work and attending to relationships. My best growth opportunities have come from communities here: from @ifc’s tournament to @curie unexpectedly showing my work some love, to the crowdsourcing of stories and art for @steemmonsters, to the current #10Kminnows initiative. Each of these initiatives (and more) have challenged me to produce work that I might not have done otherwise, and introduced me to friends whose work I follow and who support me with comments and upvotes.

Knowing that I'm writing for a supportive audience who wish me well but don't want anything from me helps me produce sincere content (a skill I still need to cultivate when it comes to my business blog).

Good People

On Loss, And Growth - Part 2

I even met some friendly bots!

Some of My Best Friends Are Robots

Besides the social reinforcement, some contests and the @actifit app go ahead and actively reinforce me working to improve myself.

Power Up!

A Better Mom

Burning Things With the Boy

It Takes 10,000 Repetitions to Learn a New Skill

Becoming a Minnow

I thank @steemcommunity for the opportunity, and @cryptoandcoffee for tagging me to get started. In addition to those already mentioned, I want to thank @pifc and @themesopotameans for being integral parts of my Steem journey so far. There are many others who have supported me here - likely if you are reading this, I am grateful for you too!

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You have written a great post describing your journey. Being part of a community does help and opens up loads of opportunities. I am just happy you came on board.

Thank you for facilitating it!

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This was a really awesome interpretation of your Steem journey thus far!

So many aspects that you describe here resonate with how I felt in the beginning. Like it was the wild west of the internet, and very intriguing to see such a diversity in personalities, yet a different behavior altogether than you are used to seeing in other social environments online. Yeah I was hooked right away haha. 😄

It's been a pleasure experiencing the journey here with you, and I'm sure the best is yet to come!

Thank you, you are one of the many reasons why I like this place.

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Awe thank you! 😊Likewise friend!

what a journey you have been on indeed. welcome to #tenkminnow, let hope we can get you over the line :-)

Thank you, I am ready!

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Hello!

This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!

Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!



The contest was the hook, but was kept me coming back was community. I'd met a group of people who posted interesting things, showed interest in my work, and offered me opportunities to contribute. This, and the obvious thrill of winning Steem rewards, kept me coming back.

That was cool to read! I didn't realize how much the IFC played a role in your steem journey. It's always neat to me to hear members of the communities experience as it gives me more insight into the whole thing. You got pretty close to winning the whole thing too! And you had joined pretty late in the season.

I found your article quite inspiring, I especially liked the quotes and the image with the quote by Ueshiba about finding peace and training right where you are. That hit me pretty deep for things I'm going through in my personal life and reminded me that as much as I'd like to be elsewhere in life this is a great place to practice and train my spirit and soul. :)

Good luck with your efforts and goals into the future! And, by the way.. I'm not sure if you're aware or not but we're already on round 6 of season 2 of the IFC, not sure if you want to play or not but it'd be awesome to see you around again if you do! :) Anyways.. Hope all is well in your world! Peace friend.

It's a condensed version, but that's how it all went down! I'm glad you noticed the idea.of growth beginning right where you stand - that is a profound message for me.

I've been off grid a bit, but definitely want to get in on Season 2! If I don't make it in time for the "inspiration" topic, I'll jump in on the next one.

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Cool. :) I appreciated learning more about your story! And ah, I see. Glad to hear you wanna be a part of season 2! I look forward to seeing you when you can find the time and a subject that interests you enough. :) All the best to you friend.

Well written and an apt description of the journey a lot of us here have taken. Keep it up and all else will follow

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Thank you, I appreciate the support!

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hi @wholeself-in and welcome to #tenkminnows. I hope you keep posting amazing content like this so we can help boost you over the next few weeks

Thank you for your support!

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Hey, @wholeself-in!

Thank you for your contribution to the crowd. We are the Steem community project dedicated to empowering The Wisdom of Crowds. You can find more about us on our official website or whitepaper and you can support us by voting for our witness and joining our curation trail on Steemauto . We are also inviting you to join Crowdmind Discord server. Don't forget to use the #crowdmind hashtag and happy crowdsourcing!

Thank you so much for being an awesome Partiko user! We have just given you a free upvote!

The more Partiko Points you have, the more likely you will get a free upvote from us! You can earn 30 Partiko Points for each post made using Partiko, and you can make 10 Points per comment.

One easy way to earn Partiko Point fast is to look at posts under the #introduceyourself tag and welcome new Steem users by commenting under their posts using Partiko!

If you have questions, don't feel hesitant to reach out to us by sending us a Partiko Message, or leaving a comment under our post!

Hi @wholeself-in!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.410 which ranks you at #18546 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 7 places in the last three days (old rank 18553).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 354 contributions, your post is ranked at #54.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • Only a few people are following you, try to convince more people with good work.
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