Steemit is feeling like a burden

in #steemit7 years ago

When I first found steemit I was so excited. I thought the site had so much potential and I went on to tell family and friends about it. I remember the first posts I wrote I wrote with passion, the words came flowing out of me and I was convinced that I would enjoy this site for a long time. I had endless ideas of things I wanted to write about, and I opened steemit several times a day just to read new posts, replies and comments.

What happened since then?

Today three months have passed since my last post and about as long time since reading other posts or making any comments. It is not that I do not know what to write about, I still have so many ideas in my head and so many pictures on my computer from some of the travels that I have done in the past few months, and they are just waiting to be shared.

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In the beginning I stopped writing because I had too many things to do. I did a wonderful eight day road trip through Californian national parks during thanksgiving week and a couple days after I came back to Long Beach my sister came to visit me from Finland. At this time the semester at the Theater Arts department was coming to an end which meant a ton of work with final papers, scenes, monologues, dances and exams. I had barely no time to spend with my sister who had traveled more than 9000 miles to see me, and even though I wanted to post to steemit I had so many important things I needed to get done first. I decided that I would start blogging again once I had finished all my final projects and my winter holiday had started.

So when my winter holiday started I was flying back to Finland to visit my loved ones and I opened a steemit posting tab on my phone so that I would be ready to write whenever I felt like it. But the feeling never came. A few times I started writing only to be unsatisfied with the process and erase everything. Each more day that I had the tab open it looked less and less appealing and I started to feel guilty when thinking about all the people that I used to follow who I had not been supporting for weeks or maybe even months. I felt so unmotivated to post even though I had all these beautiful photos and exciting stories to write about. And this mix of a loss of motivation and a feeling of guilt made even reading posts and commenting on them feel like a burden.

Another thing that I struggle with is the thought of not being able to delete any of the posts I make if I one day decide that I am not happy with them. I have chosen to use my own name and my own pictures while blogging, and the thought that anything that I write here will stay on the internet forever is kind of scary to me. What kind of a picture do I want to give of myself to anyone who will ever be interested in reading my story? How much of myself am I ready to share, and will my opinion about this change as I grow older?

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I also put quite high standards for myself, especially when it comes to any kind of creative work, so writing a post usually takes me hours or days to complete and even then I seldom feel completely happy with the end result. Having that high expectations on myself kind of kills the fun of sharing whatever it is that I am feeling passionate about in the moment.

I have to be honest, even though I love steemit and many of the things that it stands for, for a while I did not want to have anything to do with the site because it reminded me of how I had failed to keep up with the goals and dreams I had set for myself when I first found it.

But here I am. I am back on steemit, and even though I have not quite gotten back my excitement for writing I am still happy to be here. And this time I have decided to allow myself to not post for weeks or even months if that is what happens, because I want steemit to be a fun, inspiring, teaching experience and feeling guilty about not posting or commenting is not going to help. I am also going to allow myself to let fun be more important than perfect, and realize that it is okay to sometimes write short posts or only post pictures.

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(The pictures in this post are a sneak peak of what I got to experience during my thanksgiving road trip. More pictures will come later.)

Is there anyone else out there in this steemit community who is or has been feeling the same way? What helped in getting you back to feeling like writing, reading and commenting was fun again? Maybe we can find a way support each other to feel more at home here!

Thank you for reading and please do leave a comment if you relate!

mialinnea

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Every now and then I've also felt like the joy of Steemit is lost. Especially in the cases when afterwards I've noticed I might want to remove something I have already posted - there is no method to hide it, so should I just stop posting to keep everything I regret as hidden as possible?

But welcome back, hope you'll enjoy your time now once you're back here again :)

Yeah it's complicated, I think there should be a way to delete earlier posts. But I realize that there might be a problem with reposting and I'm not really sure what would be the best way to do it. But it would be nice to know that you're able to delete some things if you end up regretting something you post.

And thank you! :)

It's good to hear from you again! I understand where you're coming from when it comes to not posting. I think it has to do with the expectation that a successful author here should be consistent, post preferably everyday and all that... But sometimes our minds are occupied with other things and we simply don't have the free capacity to commit into it. So taking that extra pressure is no use; I've decided not to worry about how often I post even though I have a lot of things on the process. I'll get the things eventually done.

Even though some followers might forget you after months, then at least you'll have some real followers left who care :D

Good o hear from you too! Yeah, it seems like a good way to go to not worry about how often I'm writing and simply write because I feel like doing it! :) thanks for dropping by!

I thought that someting happend with you already! Good to see you back. Don't worry, everything will be fine!
And yeah, sometimes I struggle with some fears that, people even don't like me posts or when I see low rewards I don't have motivation. And then I'm starting to think about it, why I feel like that? After little meditations, I recognize that, if I'm doing really nice pictures, post or whatever, or not, who cares? I just learn! And I'm able to figure out why this is happening. Now I know that, something always has a reason, and I just learn from it :)

It's good to be back! And nice to hear your thoughts about it, you're completely right we learn and that's the most important aspect of the journey. I'm gonna try not to care too much as well :) But I also don't want to have a bunch of really bad posts that I'll never be able to delete...

i seriously thought something bad happen in the community, thats why you are not sharing..
turn out you are just busy..

oh sorry, did not mean to startle you, I was just sharing my thoughts. Should I have written it under another tag?

no, you shouldnt. no, i m good. :)

I’ve been using it for two months now, and just like anything else, you can get burned out from it. Maybe after your break you are ready to make an even bigger impact than before on it!

I hope so, but I am just going to try to have fun here for now and see what it leads into. Thank you for stopping by!

It looks like you have been having a good time away and it is good to have some distance for a while!

Yeah, you are right, it's good to have some distance! But then it becomes so hard to get back to writing again!