You can't just leave Steemit for a week and expect nobody to notice~ But that's where I've been, somewhere along the horizon of digital and physical recently. I am in the process of experiencing and learning a variety of lessons, and would like to share!

If you'll have me, I missed a bunch of you guys c;

Let's share some of the interesting thoughts and ponderings I've discovered which I hope can be applied to your lives as well! I feel that it's not the importance in what I am doing, as much as it is the type of perspective and thinking that takes place behind the scenes, and how this affects and manifests the scenarios I find myself in. My goal is not only to stretch thinking limits, but to expand on "knowledge application."

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"To me, true knowledge is only as strong as how many ways it can be applied." -Shello

Almost anything learned can be applied to other things, which is why while I often share in variety, the underlying lesson is what I love sharing the most. It is possible to have all of your goals build upon and complement one another, and this is a hidden gem when it comes to planning out our futures and reaching dreams. Every step I take toward one of my smaller goals, is a leap in my overall picture. I do find enjoyment in sharing the small things that go unnoticed, but being able to enrich someone else's existence by sharing what I've learned in mine is a beautiful gift to be given.

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Time Boxing Conclusion

So how did that experiment end last month? The one where I tried to write 30 blogs to raise my frequency up on Steemit? ...Oh man, I failed xD but I did get to complete 25 of those 30, and I've come into some golden bits of insight throughout this journey.

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I was pleasantly surprised to write some of these blogs during the experiment!

• SteemFest Speakers: Neil Strauss Provides Secrets and Insight on Writing Addictive Blogs for Steemit
• Image Deconstruction: FIGHTING MYSELF - Social Media Me VERSUS The Real Me /AKA Why I Think STEEMIT Is The Best
• Hawaii's Ballistic Missile Warning and What It Was Actually Like
• The Gaming Ghost - Returning After A Year Long Hiatus
• How to Manually Enhance Your Photos and Bring Them to Life!

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I realized at an earlier point in my experiment that I could in fact finish a far higher number of blogs daily, if I was willing to "dip out some"/"cut corners" on my quality/ messages/ and overall purposes of my posts.

If you ever want to figure out which option is more important to you,

give yourself enough time to only choose one.

If you read back through my documentation, I actually said several times that I was purposely going quantity over quality, but my heart didn't let me do it in the end! And from a land of only two possibilities, a third one emerged. I wanted to get better at producing high-quality content, faster. If I didn't do this experiment, I don't know if I would have ever found the strength to write like this. Now isn't that food for thought?

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Even if you fail, you can still win.

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Winning in Inimaginable Ways

We love to make distinctions between things, especially winning and losing. People are conditioned to believe that there is no in between, when in actuality there is a glimmer of success behind every failure... Logical... Optimism.

Did I ever have something to lose by trying to push myself a little further? In this experiment, there was never any kind of punishment to be encountered by failing this challenge, nor by exceeding the time limits I allocated for tasks. But the imaginary consequences I created for myself, let me make it towards 83% of my goal off of willpower alone, without putting myself in any danger whatsoever. I put nothing at risk, and was completely safe. This finding alone I feel is paramount and well worth running an experiment for a month.

What I mean by imaginary consequences, is that nothing happens to me at all by failing any part. The timer was used only as a mechanism to create a fantasy where I just had to do it in these parameters, thereby creating a sense of urgency. Much like how people procrastinate, until the very last moment to begin a task but by being entranced under such a heavy pressure, they can come through.

We can build willpower by creating a subjective sense of urgency. When we do this, it's learned that urgency is a conceptual illusion, and consequences are subject to our perceptions. Sincebeing under pressure is created within the self, it is only as real as we allow it to be.

It is an awe-inspiring sensation to come to the realization that you can fine-tune your thinking and begin climbing into higher elevation, and terrains. Most of the pressure you may feel from your family, friends, and peers is genuinely imagined, and is a manifestation of your desires against the reflection of previous actions. Realizations like this help me to realize that I won a lot by just trying.

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February Challenge

Well shit, January felt very much like; new me this, new me that! Let's make this month about YOU! It was good knowing that I can actually complete writing my posts, but it's no fun if I don't read anyone else's! You know what that means... I'm about to get balls deep in reading up on a good chunk of my favorite authors, and maybe I can find some new ones to check out in the mix too! Let's end February with 3000 total posts (especially comments!) I want to increase my interaction and learn a lot more about everyone around me c:

I'm aware that I'm sometimes hard to pin down, but don't be shy! My name is shello on both Discord and Steemit Chat. Even if you want to just say hi, or want me to read your newest blog- I'm game! I try to reach out when I can, but sometimes I'm all over. Don't be afraid to make first contact if we haven't talked in a bit :D

I want to give back some love around the Steemisphere as best as I can this month, and hopefully, I will be working on some new art, music, and video starting up in March. I got my upcoming elective choice list for school, and chose three classes that my counselor will then narrow to two for my next couple of classes. Get this. They are Philosophy, Music, and Art, I get to take two of these !! ❤

Upcoming Posts

Other than some of my aforementioned posts that are listed here, I have a lot of ideas and incoming topics brewing in the background right now, but will be giving each one the love and attention they deserve before fully rolling them out. I want to be trying out many new things, but I want to complete a solid foundation first.

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The other day I was asked if I could stay one hour later. My senior coworker bought me snacks as a thank you, and my GM took the first hour off of my next day's shift after thanking me!

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Your Job is Supposed to Help, Not Hurt

For the past couple of weeks until next week, I work 5 days a week. This is more than I wanted/signed up for but it made me notice something.

A job should never tell you that you have to pick up anyone's shifts. The should ask you, and it should be optional.

This is why I'm still working my current job as a grocery store clerk. Any changes or extra shifts/hours I can decline per my agreed upon availability. Failing some expensive classes while working other jobs helped me to reprioritize/re-evaluate what matters.

It also took me a long time to get past the martyr mindset when it comes to excelling at work. To know your worth, doesn't require you to continuously have to "prove" things to others while wearing yourself out. Exhaustion doesn't mean that you worked hard, and working hard doesn't mean you should feel lifeless. I see many people in bad positions because of these misjudgments/inaccurate views of what a good worker is, and I want to let anyone reading this know that it's not okay if your workplace treats you badly. There will always be good jobs if you are willing to seek them out.

Realistically I want to do Steemit full-time, and this is something I'm working towards as the main goal of this year! I think I can do it c:

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Braincells at Work

Keeping up is the goal, but I actually feel my neurons firing after the past week of lessons. I aced my midterm at 100%, and I don't like bragging too much, but LOOK at my overall grade (as of week 5/8)!!! It doesn't matter how a person learns, as long as they do! My degree focus is in software development, this makes me feel sort of smart c;

I spent last night, building a project for my current class in Visual Basic. This code I had to write in Visual Studio Express (GUI and coding program that makes Windows executables.) I was feeling a little apprehensive, but after a few hours of correcting my code, it does what it's supposed to do! Yo, I felt like a genius!

This code takes a positive integer (whole number) input and sums all the numbers between 1 and the number you enter. (Example: If you put 5, it sums 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 and displays 15) What's really cool is that when you are debugging /testing your program, you can fix the syntax errors and single-handedly troubleshoot! Syntax is kind of like grammar, and spelling, where your code has to follow specific format rules to run. I got it running early on but had to "re-format/re-organize" the code to get it to give the correct answer (working program, but wrong answers are called logic errors!)

While I may not be a master programmer, doing these mini projects with application building is helping my lateral thinking, to be able to approach problems creatively, and from many perspectives. I am not here to say that coding is easy by any means, but! If you can imagine and visualize a picture in your head of how a program is supposed to work, you can definitely build it.

Hire me for your project team?

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Public Class Form1
Dim strUserInput As String
Private Sub btnEnterNumbers_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnEnterNumbers.Click strUserInput = InputBox("Enter a positive integer value.", "Input Needed", 0)
Dim decSum As Decimal = 0
Dim decNumber As Decimal = 0
Dim decCount As Decimal = 0

    If Decimal.TryParse(strUserInput, decNumber) And (decNumber > 0) Then
        Do While decCount < decNumber
            decCount = decCount + 1
            decSum = decSum + decCount
        Loop
    Else
        MessageBox.Show("Enter a positive number")
    End If
    MsgBox("The sum of the numbers 1 through " & decNumber & " is " & decSum)
End Sub

Private Sub btnExit_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnExit.Click
    Me.Close()
End Sub

End Class

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You Can Only Give What You Have

And here we are! I was worried for a second that I may be rusty coming back after not writing for a whole 8 days, but one small step is infinitely greater than thinking of one. I didn't want to let my grades slip, or end up calling out from work from doing too many all-nighters, so I've been away for a little while. Can't give 100%, if your body feel like 5%!

But shello... You could have made these sperate blogs. These topics have nothing to do with each other.

" It is possible to have all of your goals build upon and complement one another, and this is a hidden gem when it comes to planning out our futures and reaching dreams."

Everything I do helps something else I am doing/want to do. That's not what it means to do something on purpose, but with purpose. It's often said that how we handle one aspect of our lives, is how the other aspects will be handled as well. In this post, almost all of these things I am doing are for myself. However, I am doing them with care and passion. With as much love I am giving myself these days, I am looking forward to seeing what kind of love I can give to others in the future. One day at a time.

I hope you learned something cool today, and thank you for reading my blog!