It Was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times. A STEEM Payout story

How to lower your expectations about STEEM reward payouts.

7 days ago, I decided to do a video on my first tomato harvest. Seeing that I made somewhat of a dull video of me cutting up tomatoes, I added to the article an explanation of how this season started. I provided images of each of my named garden areas and a brief description of what I did and how they were doing so far in the season. Of my articles, it was better than most, but probably not one of my best. I posted the article and went on. I got a few replies and while I was responding to those replies, I was shocked to see the upvote tally had gone through the roof.

I was trying to figure out what happened and then @greenacrehome posted this reply.

Notice that jump in votes and payout? You just got upvoted by @curie and their followers. :-) @georgemales submitted your post to @curie.

Apparently, @greenacrehome was getting ready to send my post to @curie as well. I was extremely grateful and humbled. As I mentioned, I didn't think it was that spectacular of a post, but apparently other people enjoyed it very much.

Wanting to get the most out of this act of generosity, I also did a @minnowsupport upvote on my post. I even did a @randowhale upvote. But, those were chump change compared to @curie. But, at least they helped push my article ranking up in Hot and Trending for a little while.

And, it jumped me from a Reputation of 52 to 54. The last time that happened, was when I had a few whales swim by on another post.

In fact, the post was being commented on and upvoted for a few days, which was a good thing and I was very surprised by the response. By the time it died down, I had doubled the comments and the upvotes and had 189 views. A great success, time to reap the rewards.

7 days ago, STEEM was trending upwards. The big BitCoin fork for August 1st looked to be resolved and everything was looking shiny for cryptocurrency.

6 Days until Reward Payout

My initial payout from the article, looked great.

5 Days until Reward Payout

Then it started to look better. STEEM was rising and so was my reward payout. Everyone was talking about BitCoin heading to $150,000 and crytpocurrencies shooting to the moon. It was a grand time.

4 Days until Reward Payout

And it kept getting better. STEEM had been at $2 earlier this year and now it looked like it was going to go to $5.50, according to people keeping track. There was no stopping this geyser of STEEM.

2 Days until Reward Payout

Okay.... things are dropping a little bit. But, it will be right back up before that payout! There is no way this thing is going to drop over 50% of its value like the last time I had a big payout. No sir.

2 Days until Reward Payout

Oh, no. Here we go again. Crytpocurrencies started dropping like rocks. STEEM was fizzling out.

1 Days until Reward Payout

Well, there doesn't seem to be much hope for a giant rebound. The slight up was followed by another dip.

3 hours until Reward Payout

The payout time is almost here and STEEM is trending downward. Baring a major uptick in the price, it looks like the reward payout, while good, won't be as impressive as I was hoping for. Just like before, that 7 day wait time is a roller coaster of excitement and disappointment.

Now, let me reiterate. I am extremely grateful for being put on @curie and the rewards I received. As a Red Fish, I am very lucky to have gotten more than one of these post boosters in the first 2 months of being active. Most Bone Fish/Red Fish/Minnows swim around waiting to get more than $0.10 upvote. It is a bit of a frustration that it makes people give up. Because, like it or not, STEEM advertises itself as a way to make money. And when you see Whales/Orcas/Dolphins making $50, $100 and $1000 for every article they post, it doesn't help to watch your $1.00 upvote go to $0.20 payout.

Also, I have been trying to be good about using the Conversion of my Steem Back Dollars(SBD) instead of the Market. In the long-run, it is best that everyone do the Conversion to eliminate the debt IOU notes that are SBDs. So, that means, when I convert my SBD, I have to determine if STEEM is going up or going down over the next 3.5 Days. It is just maddening to watch a $200 upvote on my article turn into less than half of what was expected.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, lower your expectations, when a reward is a week away. A lot of things can change in a short period of time.

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Let the positive energy sing!

More Power to the Minnows!!