How Has Steem Impacted My Life

Last week, my bestie asked me if I was still on Steem because I shared some plans I wanted to execute in 2020. She wondered aloud if that meant I would close my Steem chapter or perhaps not be as active.

If I had said yes, you’d look at my page and call me a liar!!! The truth could not be further. On the contrary, Steem is always part of the equation. So thank you @theycallmedan, as your question has given me a chance to share “How Steem has Impacted My Life” and why I am still here.

So WHY do I have so much heart for the Steem Blockchain?

Not because I am some tech savvy developer that can dish out reasons the Steem Blockchain is your best bet to bring ideas to fruition. Not because I am some market expert who can predict the rise of Steem all the way to the moon. And definitely not because I have been a successful creator on centralised platform until I was shadow banned or/and had my account suspended and in retaliation stepped in to the Steem Blockchain where my voice would be immutable.

I wish I could claim at least one of it, but alas.... I am just an ordinary, has been wanna be, who has found a “feeling” with Steem. Kosher as hell, overly cautious, supremely paranoid and I can tell you without a doubt, I am here to stay til we cross the finish line.

This is HOW Steem found me

It truly was serendipity. My bestie, this very same one, had asked me to help man her booth at a Women’s Workshop. However, on that day, I had some extra work to finish at the office and couldn’t take the day off. As a compromise, I dashed over for a couple of hours so she could do her tarot readings.

In that full-day workshop, in this window that I was there, @bitrocker2020, steps up and runs us through what Steem was about in a nutshell. He was bombarded with questions left, right and centre. Isn’t Crypto a scam? Is it legal? Where is the money coming from? And on and so forth. He handled the questions the best he could in the 15 minutes he was allocated, quickly walked us through on how to create an account and he was done.

But all of this was sandwiched between a "wefie" he took at the start to prove a point. Uploaded it within seconds, got on to show us some slides, answer questions and at the end before he said goodbye, he showed us how much the picture had earned.. Woah!!!

WHAT got a suspicious sceptic like me in?

I researched like crazy, then feeling confident I wasn’t going to be hauled off to prison (since I have only been told a gazillion times that Bitcoin/Crypto is a scam)..., I got my account and started posting gingerly. I tried to wrap my head around markdowns and culture and the 3 different currencies. SP, Steem and SBD. I did a lot of reading, watched videos on crypto and stalked that guy @bitrocker2020. My Word, what a learning curve it was and trust me, it took forever to get it but I embraced the challenge.

Thank you to @curie this post got a whopping 112STU, my 5th post on my first month and that encouraged me to keep at it. Mind you, this was in December 2017. The price was around USD3. So doing the math, that post made about USD336/RM1344. My oh my oh my!!!!

Then to make sure I wasn’t being gullible, I cashed out the minimum I could which was 6 Steem for RM70ish and went for a nice meal with @vangie who helped me with the process.

Sure, after that, some posts had miserable payouts, some even earned nothing, and a couple had a lot of love. The price also started dropping. But I was hooked. I was in awe of Steemians like @theycallmedan and @exyle who had so much faith in Steem and put their money where their mouth is. There was also @khimgoh who did it on the quiet. I consumed the good, the bad and the ugly of Steem and weighed the pros and cons. There were more pros.

WHEN did this Introvert start liking social media?

Did I just share my feelings in that post? Wait? What??! Did I just take a selfie to post on Steem. I was never a social media fan. I liked my privacy, I was an introvert and I didn’t really like people.

So who are these anonymous people on Steem that got me comfortable enough? It happened so gradually, I didn’t see it until I woke up one day and knew that I was going to go to SteemFest4 and did! I am still, mostly an introvert but prior to Steem I would have never paid to go to a different country to hang out with people I’d never met. There’s something about the Steemians I have bumped into on the SteemVerse. Here are just a couple of stories to why I am a believer.

@marianewest reached out to her FreeWriters to help with a Venezuelan who needed a surgery because her insurance backed out at the last minute and money couldn’t be sent over either. Marianne did not know this Venezuelan but in good faith gave all the Steem she earned from her posts, her FreeWriters sent some over too and enough Steem was collected, transferred to the recipient's Steem wallet, which was then converted to Bolivars and the surgery was a success.

@hitmeasap, put out a call to action, to help the RedFish who were close to levelling up to Minnow and guess what? Steemians from around the world volunteered to help nudge them over to the other side. Some of them RedFish themselves. Sure this was not surgery, not a life or death situation. This was more goodwill, and it was amazing to watch those identified crossover to Minnowhood just a little bit faster. Some in a matter of days, some in hours. Yes, I am a recipient and prior to this I had never heard of him or he of me.

There are so many more stories here of the good people of the Blockchain, I might need a separate post just for that. I am not saying Steem is perfect, it has its faults and a bunch of jokers too, but there are enough of the good guys and great working ideas that make Steem full of possibilities.

So, why Steem? It has introduced me to Crypto in a comfortable way. I have made some friends and hope to give them a real hug someday, but most of all, I have grown as a person and if nothing else, that will stay with me forever. So here I am to stay til tipping point and when that happens, I am going to have to travel more to meet more Steemians.

Cheers,
Sh33la