In for a rough ride

"I will be more emotionally stable if I get $5 on each post rather than getting $40 on one and 0.1 on others."

This was from a conversation last night with a new user here who has been complaining about the reward structure and lack of rewards. It was made after discussions about investment and return and had been going for several days.

Yes, for most at Steemit, there are large inconsistencies in the return (if there is a return at all) and one cannot come to rely on any stability as at any point, a long-time supporter can remove their support or a hardfork can change everything. But, this post is not about that.

It is about the emotionally stable part and the willingness to cap a low ceiling average rather than a sky's the limit approach. This is very human, it is the way we are programmed. We are hardwired to search for security and once we 'have it', we get comfortable very quickly indeed.

For many of us in this world, the risk of pushing for the higher end and failing is too great and decide instead to play it safe yet, we envy those who have more than us. When we look at how they managed it, we rarely factor in the risks they took to get there a we do not see them, we only see the results.

When it comes to being objective with ourselves, we are also flawed as we overemphasise our good moves and underweigh our poor. We feel that we are pushing hard even if we are doing the average, doing what everyone else is doing.

Doing what everyone else is doing is rarely going to open up the skies as values are distributed across the group and the larger the group, the more more diluted the results. But, there is security in the group, safety in numbers and because that is where we feel safe, that is where we are more likely to hold our position, settle for average.

There is nothing wrong with being average, nothing wrong with being a member of the group but one must also come to the acceptance that their is a limitation for being within it. There is an opportunity cost to having safety, consistency, security and that cost may be the drive needed to push oneself.

Security offers safety but often sucks the impetus to jump in and take risks, and once there is a reliance on the consistency of support or income, one builds life around it. This means that in order to change, one must risk what one has, a challenge when one is comfortable.

This is a big part of the reason people end up in jobs they don't really enjoy but stay there year after year because to leave is risky. The cost of emotional stability can be very high when compared to overall life satisfaction. Playing it safe, is generally a lot less safe than people imagine.

There is no security in this world, it is an illusion but our emotions trick us into thinking that it exists. We use our emotional states as an indicator of safety without really evaluating the individual elements associated with the position.

For example, using how we feel about the payout figure as an indicator of security doesn't factor in a whole range of other conditions, current or future. This particular person later asked what are SMTs and how does curation work? It is hard to take someone's concerns seriously when they have yet to investigate at even the shallowest levels two of the major conversations on the platform.

What this indicates is that they are acting on habit and their habit is the importance of payout. For sure it is important to a degree but that payout is dependent on many factors both in and outside of their control but, they are yet to understand the details. It is like the employee who goes to work and doesn't care what happens there as long as they get paid on time.

These people have little chance of being promoted and an increased chance of being cut if times become difficult. They only start to care when the false certainty of the paycheck stops arriving in their account. Then, instead of looking at what they missed, they blame the changes others made, they become victims and the oppressed.

And this is the core problem with wanting emotional stability, it can be hacked by those who sell security and once the taste of safety is there, they can slowly increase the price while offering less in return. They will never tell you that security does not exist, never encourage to look into it for yourself, never admit that what they are selling is a lie. They can't, because if they do, they lose a customer.

To be emotionally stable means to understand that emotions by default are not stable, they are driven by a range of influences we have no control over and to tie them to external circumstance is to give up our responsibility of our actions. We can justify our poor emotional reactions because 'how else could I react, it was out of my control.' It all becomes someone or something else's fault.

Well, I guess it is one way to go.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]