This decision might not for everyone, but for those who are daily steemit users who want to build many relationships on the platform and have a mindset of abundance rather than one of scarcity, it seems like the best way to go.

A lot of people are feeling an upvote drought. I know I have. So rather than continue to sit around and complain about it, I need to focus on what I can do right now.

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The benefits of voting at 20-30%

Maintaining Abundance Mentality

When you don't have enough to go around, you hoard. You are not very giving. You trust others less, you are generally more inclined to be selfish. By upvoting more we can get back into a mindset of abundance which will affect more than just our voting behavior, it will make us act like better people, more willing to trust the platform and each other and build positive relationships.

Less Competition , More Cooperation

Some people think competition is a great thing, that it'll encourage us to produce higher quality material. This may be true in a world where there is always a fair playing field and we all have the skills necessary to succeed if we try hard enough, where there are no ways to beat the system and everything goes according to plan all the time. But is that the world we live in? Competition is just as likely to turn us into lazy assholes who only look out for ourselves and feel entitlement and/or resentment. If we consistently put effort into quality material that gets little attention (let's not pretend this isn't the case for MOST quality material here) where is the motivation to continue producing quality? I believe 40 upvotes at 25% are more effective at motivating the community to keep working hard and show my appreciation to the many people who deserve it.

Variety of Upvotes

It was nice when I felt I could upvote my comments and not drain my voting power. Now I can do it again to encourage commenting because I really do love receiving comments as much as being upvoted. I spend most of my upvotes on posts that impress me and are also topics of interest but I also like to throw them to some users who show promise if they get their stuff together, or to some friends who I really like as people even if I'm not always into the topics they post about. With 4-5x upvotes today before starting to deplete, I don't feel guilty about showing love to friends on the platform.

Building Relationships

Upvoting is mainly a way of showing appreciation, so by doing so more frequently, you have the ability to brighten more people's day and build relationships with more people and show more love for more posts (though it maybe be a bit of an empty gesture at a low enough percentage).

You can get a voting slider even with a low SP with esteem or chainbb

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Here's one example of how you can use upvotes to show appreciation. I really like the drawings of @william-syrus. When I'm not careful to follow my feed, I notice he's got 4 or 5 nice posts that I haven't upvoted (I'm about to check after I post this). I could show love to one post at 100%, but if I split it up I let him know I appreciate his work in general and see him as a valuable part of the community, I am encouraging him to keep drawing because he knows there are people who loves what he does and will continue to pay attention when they can. I can't tell you how great it feels to have friends here like @rondonson @patelincho @blunderbabe @guyfawkes4-20 @kryptik and others whose names I see upvoting almost all of my posts. I don't feel like being lazy and posting crap knowing that some people will still support it, it has the complete opposite effect I feel encouraged to keep putting my heart into everything.

I want to deserve their support.

I will still use 100% on some of my favorite posts, the ones that deserve the most love when I have enough to offer. So while I would LOVE to get LOVE at 100% from everyone, I will rest assured when I see upvotes at a lower percentage because it means there is more love to go around.

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-thetree

thetree - a collection of short stories

be awesome chats - a discord channel for making deeper connections with fellow steemians