Just A Thank You To My Followers and Readers, and a little ive learned about STEEM

Hello Steemit community. I want to sincerely thank everyone that takes time to read what I write. I appreciate any and all comments, feedback and criticism that I receive whether it be good or bad. I consider my time very important. I don,t have enough time to do everything I want to in a day and I know that a lot of people are in the same position. When someone spends their valuable time to read my work and comment I consider that extremely flattering and I couldn't be more appreciative.

I make it a point to write back to everyone that comments to my posts. I actually thoroughly enjoy the interaction with the people that follow me and the people I follow and read. I am proud of my Steemit community. I have worked hard to write posts stories and content that are informative, interesting and beneficial to someone in any way. I will admit that some of my posts are written for the selfish purpose of just getting things off my chest and hoping to get input from the community about whatever the situation.

I have never been a blogger. I am not a fan of social media. I despise facebook ,twitter, instagram, periscope and all that trash. I like Youtube but despise the censorship and political agenda of it. I have always wanted to be a writer of sorts though. I suppose I got on Steemit with the same intent as a lot of people. I am big in to cryptocurrency and I was told it was an easy way to make free crypto. That is kind of true but, not that easy. If it was that easy everyone would be making thousands of dollars for every post. My first bunch of posts all made about twenty cents each. Not was I was expecting.

What Steemit isn't, makes it what it is. I read up on how Steemit actually works and I tweaked how i was doing things.
I realized even more how the difference between Steem and other social media platforms couldn't be greater. Steemit does not reward clickbaiting, Steemit does not reward pictures of cats with seven hundred thousand likes. Steemit only rewards quality content (sometimes good stuff goes unnoticed too though). A users account has value. The more the account holder produces, the more the account is worth. The more the account is worth, the more the account holders upvotes are worth, for the first few votes of the day. My first few upvotes are worth twelve cents. After about five or six upvotes, the value goes down a little. If someone upvotes a hundred times in a day the upvotes become basically worthless. The more upvotes used in a day, the longer it takes for upvote strength to get back up to full power. People that are aware of this are a lot more intentional with their upvotes. This creates an environment where the best possible content is created to try to get Those coveted upvotes.

Steemit doesnt put advertisements in to peoples posts or videos to let them make money that way either. I love Steemit for this. I find it keeps the purity of Steemit real. I see some Youtube videos that are ten minutes long and have an ad every two minutes. Things like that will turn me off instantly. Steemit has none of that and that just adds to the greatness of Steemit.

To be honest, I did get on Steemit for the money possibilities. When that didn't work out how I hoped, I started writing for other reasons and that's when things turned around for the better. I started writing for fun. I started writing for purpose. I started writing to try to make a difference. My first , what I consider, successful post was my first #vetsconnect post. #vetsconnect might have been biting off more than i can chew. I had a vision to try to connect veterans, mainly combat vets, but all vets are welcome. I saw possibilities of how Steemit could connect combat veterans suffering with P.T.S.D. and other issues could get help and advice on how to deal with feelings and emotions that nobody but another combat veteran can understand and relate to. I started with my story. My attempted suicide. Things I have never told another living soul before. The more I wrote, the better I felt, Like a burden being lifted off my shoulders that had been crippling me for years.

So now I write from the heart as much as I possibly can. I have so much that I want to write about and I get sidetracked very easily and I am always short on time. I am a single dad that works about 50 hours a week so my time that is available to write on Steemit is EXTREMELY limited. If I can get out two articles a week i consider myself lucky.
I feel honored every time i see that I have earned a new follower. I work very hard to get and keep followers.At the risk of sounding like a weirdo, I get giddy like a prepubescent schoolgirl when i get new followers.

I guess the point is that when stopped writing to try and make money and started writing to make myself happy and to try making a difference in other peoples lives, then the money followed. My idea of a successful post may not be the same as other peoples. My posts average $12.00 each. that is not an accurate representation of anything. Most of my posts make about two to three dollars. Every now and then I have a post that really hits home with a lot of people and generates two to three hundred dollars. I cant lie and say that I dont like making the Steem Dollars but what I love most about posts like that is that i know that it has affected a vast amount of people in a positive way, and that is what my new purpose on Steemit has become. I have gone from my initial purpose of just wanting to make some money to now wanting to positively affect as many people as I possibly can with the limited time that I dedicate to Steemit.

If anyone is struggling on Steemit, I suggest first gain understanding of how Steemit truly works. Then I would say stop writing for money only, stop writing to impress anyone else and write to make yourself content and happy. Everything else will fall in to place.