Well, it's been hard. Right now its been exactly fifteen days since my Great Dane Fiona had 9 puppies and even though all of the puppies survived, I had to actively care for them in order to help them do so.
I had to make sure that all of them got a chance to get some milk from the mother every 2 hours the first few days, then every four hours and right now its every 5-6 hours. It wasn't easy and I've been tired as hell because real life doesn't wait for you (and the Steem life is the same) and at one point I had to leave it to mother nature to take its course. If a puppy dies then its because it wasn't strong enough or didn't fight for milk as much as the next one.
One of them is very small. It's the one that didn't cry enough and momma didn't notice he wasn't getting as much food as the others.
Well, this small puppy escaped the nest as it was small enough to crawl under a hole that Fiona unkowingly made and none of us realized until several hours passed. I think the puppy got some kind of Flu or parasite because now its vomiting and his nose is dripping at all times.
But that's life. Some of us get a headstart and some of us don't and what we make out of it depends on us. It is hard to let nature take its course. There's nothing I can do but make sure he's eating every time I go to the nursery but that's as much as I can do, everything else it's up to him.
Which makes me wonder, up to what point should we help others until its enough and we have to say, ok, you're on your own now.
All of 2018 I had a delegation from Blocktrades, it was 250k Steem Power. Enough to support high quality newcomer authors until they were ready to play on Steem on their own. Most of them are still here blogging and getting support from others, they created their own communities, made friends and have an audience. Some others left when I stopped supporting them.
But should I put on myself a medal for helping those who are still here? Should I blame myself for those who left?
I don't think so. I believe it is just how things work on Steem, on our human real lives and on the natural world, whether it may be my puppies on my back yard or a gazelle being eaten by a lion. There are circumstances and situations where we are not supposed to meddle or intervene and we should just let things go with the flow.
Will it hurt if the puppy dies? Definitely. Will it be my fault for not helping him? Most likely. Should I feel guilty? I don't think so.
We can't save everyone.
Right now I'm here, sitting next to the puppies while they feed and letting them get used to my smell and I could't help but think of Spiderman.
Spiderman would say: ¨But if I have the power to help them, and I don't then it's my fault. But what happens if you save someone time after time and they keep going back to the behaviour that got them in the same problematic situation in the first place?
It's a huge dilemma. I don't think I'm an authority to speak about it and that my opinion should be taken as law, but I have some experience both irl and on steem to tell you: If someone decides to leave Steem after you supported them and the moment they start not seeing support, they jump ship, you shouldn't feel guilty.
It's a weird topic. Comparing discouraged Steemians to sick puppies, I know. But I believe the same principle applies here. There's only so much you can do for a limited number of Steemians, and if some of them decide to leave or can't handle to put in as much time, effort and quality into their steem journey well, my only take here would be, let mother nature take its course.
Either they power down, leave and never come back or they come back and buy when the price is higher. Either way, we are fine without them. I prefer to keep those Steemians who believe in Steem and will continue on this journey together, no matter the ups and downs we face, we'll face them together. And we'll see Steem moon together.
This post was originally posted in October 2019 and it's part of my initiative called showcase April, where I'll post the best content I've done over the past three years.