Hard to believe that was an average day pictured there, working my hands to dust in the dirt of Earth

Tonight I wanted to take a little moment to begin opening up to my growing friendships here withing my mini following community rising. I love writing to you about crypto, the endless possibilities of trading, and make you some graphics to use on your blogs. This though is a moment I should make a tradition to really let you guys know who I am, where I come from so I will do my best to give you little snippets of my life now and then, because true friends never hide who they are.

That picture above was taken a little over a year ago. That was exactly day for day how dirty my job back then made me. To think this picture was taken in the wee hours of the morning shift makes me cringe a little looking back. I worked hare back then as a pipe layer (snicker your jokes here lol), my job consisted of installing main water lines back then for a construction company in my local area here in North Florida. Day to day, I would get in some very scary deep dug holes and put in ungodly sized and heavy water lines with danger at every corner. The company I worked for was worth multi-millions, no small company to say the least and the company consisted of hundreds of crews all over the area.

I scraped by a lot during this period, see working for the man (as we said to ourselves daily) was not a path to anyone's riches, just enough to get by and keep afloat with the bills and tax man stacking against us. Sure you go home feeling beat and sometimes mad at the world for the hours of scrubbing that took place to clean the filth off of you but you did do something for your family and that was the positive flow to keep going.

As time when on and the year got longer and longer I became very down about the course my life has led. See I am a man with a past, some of it I boast proudly and some I fear to even utter a word about. I am human and I have made a ton of mistakes in life, due to the karma of my past my opportunities were very slim as I got into my 30s. Sure I lived right but my younger self really put some costs on my chances for stability in the finance area so I like so many others in the world just sucked it up and figured take what I could get and run with it.

Happiness though was not in this job, it grew and grew more obvious as the days passed by. Sure I met the woman of my dreams during this period and she stuck by me when I was miserable but I knew in my heart something had to give before I snapped.

Then came the literal boss from hell

During this period I bounced between two construction companies. I grew to find out in this field you have to kind of work your raises by leaving to other companies and sell yourself up to a raise. Seemed sticking in the same place mean being stuck with low pay so after long advice I left to work somewhere else for a simple dollar raise. Boy did that come at a price...

On my first day I knew instantly the personality of the foreman and mine would not mesh well. The guy was crude, unrelenting on the guys and rather watch you die of thirst vs you miss any quota on him. I have never in my life met such an unhuman character but over time under his reign I did come to find out he appreciated in some fashion the hard work I gave.

Around last November though this all came to a head. It wasn't me being picked on but the new boss from hell was constantly running off new guy after new guy. Leaving me and another guy having to pick up the slack and constantly work like slaves because he couldn't keep his anger and madness in check. The stress in my life last November was so bad I wondered if it would come to hand to hand combat with this guy to calm him down, and on occasion I seen close calls of other guys about that fired up with his inanities.

As I always did though I just tried to stick it out, unsure if it was lack of belief in myself back then or just fear of change. In the end I just took the drama and kept showing up to work, day after day.

Me at work, this photo was taken around that stressful time, think you can see it on my face

A Hurricane and a Moment of Clarity

Last fall we had a bad Hurricane that hit our area. Nothing major but enough of one to shut things down for a week. Before the coming storm hit we had to do what they call "safe up" the construction site. The task was to get all equipment and material safely consolidated in an area and tied down so the coming storm didn't blow stuff around thus creating danger for the local neighborhood. It was rainy that day when we went in to do this but nothing new, had to work in the rain many times before due to this guy being a tyrant...you get used to these things.

Something shifted that day though, I witnessed my boss from hell get onto our Back Hoe operator who happened to be at the time a friend of mine. The guy was a pretty decent worker and was out there with us getting soaked but our boss as usual was not happy and took it out on all of us. The two about got into a huge fist fight, me your narrator here of course in the middle as always trying to calm everyone down. Long story short the crew ended up walking off the site and quitting, I with them. The uncertainty of where my money would come from was not stronger than the fact I personally had enough of being someones step stool at work, I had to get out of that situation so walking at the time seemed to be the only option.

A Thing called Crypto

Now you would probably guess this was a stressful period, lost my job, and actually me and my now fiance back then ended up losing our place to stay. Family of course looked out but hard to believe this period was not stressful at all. During that moment I was doing a ton of reflecting. I come to the conclusion within my self that I was still a bright guy here and this line of work I was doing was going no where for me no matter how hard I tried to work it. I had clarity over stress and a nudge in my spirit to make some changes fast before life eats me up alive.

Along the way I found out a thing called Bitcoin had grown up a lot compared to my first dealing with it around 2013-2014. This intrigued me a lot while I was job hunting and it kept calling to me to look into. This is a story I hear from a lot of crypto enthusiasts, that it just gnaws on them to look deeper into and once I did I was hooked.

Ever since I have been working for myself. Not perfectly, a lot of trial and error has taken place since last November but I took my tax return and invested it. Went to work for awhile with PIVX in their marketing and found out I have a knack for that area like a calling in life. Granted I have job hunted throughout all of this, but around my area its very scarce so I decided to dive in with the blessing of my fiance to make more of this crypto thing.

Did I make it? No to be dead honest I am still in progression of making it here in crypto. Steemit seems to be the spot for me as I get deeper into it and I believe the game changer for us here but I am still not counting my riches. To be fair and honest I hold what I hold in my wallet here on Steemit and that is truthfully all the earnings I sit on as I write this. This though is not a matter of worry, we survive and make ends meet, just to have some freedom to work towards the future on my own terms is a huge factor for me to feel relieved about for the time being. In the end I am a work a holic by nature and sure I will make a good run of things here and on my Steemit Blogger Central venture to help the community. Right now to be dead honest, I fear nothing and feel a wealth of peace for the fact I finally have gotten the balls enough to not succumb to the slavery I experienced in my last job ever again.

I share this little story with you for one reason only, to let those out there struggling know that maybe its not something they have to feel stress over or endure constantly if they are not happy with their situation or life. You do have the right and freedom to make wild decisions for your life to follow your heart. You can break free of doing things you do not feel joy in doing. My story may not have lead to a place of wealth as of yet but I will tell you this, I have found hope and happiness again through that choice to become my own boss. So far Steemit has me that opportunity to do so on my own terms and working at PIVX gave me the knowledge I had gifts in myself I was not aware of. These are the things you find out when you take a risk in life and a risk on yourself sometimes. To me that is wealth and that is the key to the beginnings of a life long passion of happiness.

So the moral of the story is this, never give up and do what feels right for you and your family...you might surprise yourself what you can do with a little self belief.

~sflaherty

Follow me @sflaherty