One Year on steemit: Being the Change

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I'm really not a big fan of doing the whole milestone posts thing. I generally try to do something different and make sure that I am adding value to the platform at the same time, but this is just my nature as many of you know the money isn't ever really my focus. Full disclosure, I do live off the money that I make on steemit and from trading crypto, but that really isn't what this post is about. I tried doing something a while back to start a pay it forward initiative for promoting new users and it didn't really get any support. It hasn't stopped me from still supporting new users and some of you may already know that I've done some work with Minnow Support Project in the past. So today I want to discuss what my first year on steemit has taught me and what my plans are going forward.

When I first bought into steemit, it was another investment and I didn't really care if it was worth anything or not, it was just a means to an end. I believe many people in crypto have that limited line of sight and don't really have a vision for these projects. A few months after investing I went through a lot of personal issues and had to figure out who I was and what I was going to do with my life going forward. It turns out that in some ways I am an entirely different person and in other ways I'm still the same. I decided to use steemit as a sort of mental health journal while working through much of my broken logic and documenting my spiritual growth. I found a community that was accepting and even though many of us haven't ever met each other, there is a lot of support and strong sense of family here if you're willing to find it.

I had one of the newer users mention philosophy earlier and it reminded me of some of my older posts and short lived attempt at running a second account. I am all about transparency and accountability and I don't feel like discussing my philosophy on a second account and being paid for it reflected how serious I was, so I stopped doing that. I didn't stop curating and I didn't stop supporting new users though and due to the structure of the platform and where voting power lies I just kept my head down for a while and promoted new users without any affiliations or long term alliances. I'm going to change that now.

I remember speaking to @aggroed when he was discussing running for witness and it was one of the reasons I even bothered researching our witnesses and learning about what they do. When he started the Minnow Support Project, I was hesitant to get involved to say the least. I've ran into issues where I felt like many of the big groups on the platform are not aligned with my philosophical views and rather than try to change other people I focus on myself. I'd rather be the change and show other people that there is a better way to treat each other. After hanging around the Minnow Support Project off and on since it started and mainly taking a backseat, I decided that it was on the level and I've been much more active lately.

I am rather long winded when I get into these types of posts, but here's the point of all of this. After a year on steemit and watching how many of these "great community projects" operate, I am willing to officially support MSP and I will be delegating half of my steem power to the @minnowsupport bot as soon as my current power down cycle finishes. I know I'm not a whale and I've actually intentionally powered down to below dolphin level or whatever you want to call people. The truth is every user of the platform is just a person and regardless of how much money you have in the platform, I feel like this is the best shot at building and growing the community. I would encourage anyone else with a large SP stake that is looking for a way to give back and help new users to get involved or delegate as well. Thanks for a great first year everybody! Namaste.

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Website: http://minnowsupportproject.org/
Discord: https://discord.gg/XmHZuD