It happened on the road to steemit nirvana

What will you do for a buck?

I'm spent. In three weeks I have done more writing about my work than I have ever done in my whole life. Quite impressive, really. Today I hit a wall. Yes, I have posts in the works. I have a master checklist I refer to as I write stuff, and it's satisfying checking the titles off as they are completed.

My mad addiction post I wrote last week (https://steemit.com/life/@jlwkolb/this-mad-addiction) summed up my experience so far perfectly – yes, it was crazy. I had notebooks by my bed and a pen handy in case I woke up with an idea of the century. I was so distracted and cut off from my family life and routines it was getting worrisome. I couldn't even leave the house without missing my computer.

Almost two weeks later, I still have those pens and notepads at the ready. But guess what? I figured it out. It’s ok for me to step back to re-gather my strength.

The ones in drafts? I see them all day long. Sometimes my laptop has 15 word file tabs open. New stories on steemit pour in all day - so many it's impossible to keep up with the really good stuff you probably won’t see anywhere else. Then anxiety - I feel like it's a competition and I had better get posting. When that happens, it's time to walk away for a bit until I am reenergized to post from my heart, not from a place of keeping up with the steemit Joneses. When I'm overwhelmed, anything I could possibly write will sound desperate and unfamiliar. My comments risk sounding petty and judgmental. I don’t like that part of me. I also don't like that part of me that has let the rest of my obligations down. I have to get two classes ready to teach this fall. Getting that job was the best thing that happened to me five months ago.

Here's the real thing. I want my voice back so I can contribute more to the community we are trying to build. But until I clear my head and can gather some more momentum, it's probably better to step back and casually observe. I don't want to write just to clog the bandwidth. I want to share work I am proud of and that can only come from an open mind not distracted by the fear of missing out. Slapping something together in a half-assed manner is not the way I roll.

If there’s too much noise, we want nothing more than to cover our ears.

Besides, we do steemit a disservice when we post less than we are capable of for a quick buck or two. Once we begin asking what brings in the most votes vs. what’s really valuable and pandering to those preferences, we compromise ourselves. Of course we aren’t always on our game. We have good days and bad days. Some days seem to be a waste if we don’t get the kind of work done that we initially intended to do. It's time to remember to be easy on ourselves so we don't burn out.

Like I wrote in Wednesday’s Tortoise and the Hare post, slow and steady will make the biggest difference in our successes here. Are you guilty of rushing to get something published without editing or less-than-stellar visuals that could have made a big impact simply because you needed to post? I like to think that the race is not about competition with others. Maybe it’s measuring our own work by the highest standards we can impose upon ourselves. Shooting for consistent quality – now that’s an admirable goal.

I urge us all to slow down and remember what it was about creating that initially got us going. We were writing and creating before steemit. Maybe we weren’t with the same vigor, but we did our best. It’s easy to slack off when you have been reasonably successful in some endeavor. But taking that for granted and underestimating what our new followers expect is a death blow to our integrity.

Once you slip off of that cliff, you’re likely to keep on falling.

drawing © Johanna Westerman, 2016