One Year On Steemit!

It's my Steemit birthday!

365 days ago today I decided to stop playing all video games, stop watching video game content, and start blogging on a certain cryptocurrency backed social media website. A family member recommended Steemit to me and said he thought I would really enjoy it, and he was not wrong!

In the last year Steemit - the people I've met here, the content I've been producing here, and the financial support it has provided at times - has pretty concretely changed my life. Especially in the difficult beginning, Steemit was the only thing preventing me from going back to playing video games endlessly, at all hours of the day. But soon, Steemit became an end in and of itself, and an excellent motivator for me to write more and higher quality content on the things that interested me most.

Thanks to my time on Steemit, I met the awesome people behind the @steemstem initiative and met them all at the LHC of all places. My own study and understanding of fungi has grown exponentially and is set to grow much more in the future. The funds from my Steemit content paid for the incredible trip to Chile I'm currently documenting in my Amateur Mycologist series, and as a result also connected me to an entirely different and equally awesome group of fungi enthusiasts here in and around NYC.

Eventually, as I wrote for Steemit and found myself with all the free time that comes with not playing video games constantly, I began writing short stories and flash fiction again. That eventually turned into my subreddit "Legends From The Multiverse", which is currently doing quite well with over 1750 followers subscribers. Plus, the extra time has also allowed me to change my physical habits and become more physically active, as well as be more engaged at work.

Obviously, these changes are largely internal ones, part of the process of me tweaking my behaviors to influence the outline of my life. However, Steemit's roll in that process cannot be overstated, especially in the beginning of the shift.

Steemit was my replacement compulsion in lieu of video gaming - one that at least involved me learning something and writing about it and having a record of what I wrote. In the beginning I never anticipated it would be this successful - I just knew I had found a replacement addiction for video games that I felt was more positive overall.

Today, Steemit places a less compulsive role in my life, but not one of less significance. If you've read my most recent posts I hope you agree that they are no less comprehensive and detailed than my earlier posts, and indeed are much more so in many regards. I may not post as frequently as I did in the beginning, but I believe my content is of a much higher quality than it once was.

Thank you all for your support, especially, as always, the folks @steemstem and my devoted cadre of fungi lovers. I have lots more to write about, and many more beautiful pictures to share.

Here's to another year!

@dber

[Photo Credit]By Sander van der Wel from Netherlands (The birthday cake) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons