The 93 days that changed our life. (Steemit Ultimate Challenge 8 Weeks - Week #6)

Today is our 93rd day in this platform. What better way to mark our achievement than thanking all our followers. Today, on our 93rd day with Steemit we gained our 800th follower, fellow plankton @temizkopat. Today, this post is dedicated to all our fellow Steemians. Yay!

Over the months of sharing our thoughts, ranting about pet peeves and opening our lives to this platform, we have gained so much. And these things we gained have been priceless. So much that it turned our lives around.

Everyday, we share our lives over many different social media platforms. We get likes, comments and shares. With every thumbs up from Facebook, it adds a little to our narcissistic side. And we eventually try to look cooler, more extravagant, and more fabulous. In turn, it does not do us any good. Like, "so what if you ate at a fancy restaurant?", "So what if you got the most expensive gadget?" We also get hate comments, sad and angry reactions that make our already sensitive narcissistic selves feel bullied online. Facebook should be connecting people (no, I am not promoting Nokia, lol) but for what it has been lately, it has been a place of envy, hatred and jealousy. And what do we get from all of it? Zilch.

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When we started with Steemit, we were hesitant to go out there and share. The fear that has been established by online bullying and online shaming were to blame. We ARE inexperienced writers. The closest we have done to authoring something was a business email. We were entering a world of serious bloggers, big time artists, critics and worldwide travellers. How would we keep up? Those thoughts surely made us feel small. We thought we will never be ready to compete with these people. But, one comment left on one of our earliest posts said, "write about what makes you happy..." And so we did. It was a struggle at first but it was no reason to give up. It is always hard at first. Patience and perseverance are the keys. And we were wrong. This is no place for hard core blogging competition. This is a place where you are given power to influence others to be better at what they do. This is a place for a friendly and healthy competition.

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Overtime, the community made us feel welcome. We had upvotes that had values, far different from the likes we get from Facebook. We got comments that praised and critiqued our articles. And that was fine, afterall these were exactly what we needed to help us grow. In 93 days, we gained. A lot.

We gained new friends. People from all walks of lives have shared with us what they think about what we do. They have supported us throughout our journey in this platform. Our hearts have been touched by the most sincere comments to our posts. We have also made new friends from many different nations, those who does not even speak the same language I have but sincerely understands where our posts were coming from. We experienced unforgettable events in Steemit, like that of when I felt I was in a newspaper headline because I restored faith in humanity by returning something that I found. People here in Steemit have been nothing but awesome! Steemians rock!

Image grabbed from @watersnake101's post

We gained extra income. Enough to support us during crucial times when regular money flow for the householdjust were not enough to make end to end meet. These came in handy when the car tires had to be replaced, when both of the kids had to be sent to the hospital, when a friend had to be helped and when a victory had to be celebrated. Finances were hard and they still surely are but these tokens from every upvote have been so much a big help! All thanks to our fellow Steemians, may they be followers or not who thought our articles were worth reading.

More importantly, we gained some strong sense of fulfillment (nothing of which can come from any social media sites like Facebook or Twitter) - most especially for my wife Jonah who has been authoring most of the write ups we have in here. She has always wanted to write but was never able to show it off. A perfect example of a closet writer and a frustrated blogger. She has one two many boxes full of her well written journals that never got read by anyone but me. Her young dreams of becoming a journalist or a writer has long been vanished due to winds of life that blew her off to a different path. Thanks to Steemit, she now feels more inspired to come up with many ideas for interesting articles. Payouts from all her works made her feel like an actual author. The kind who gets paid and acknowledged by many. On this platform, she got her fulfillment as a mommy-blogger. Thank you Steemit for making her morale back at a higher scale than it was months before we met you.

To every Steemian, keep steeming and have fun while doing it! Share your adventures, dreams, ideas, and thoughts. No idea is too small to share. Everything counts big. Post your rants and raves. Be you. Go out and show the world what you have got and what you are made of. It does not matter if you are a plankton or a whale, so long as you feel good with what you do, you will always be rewarded with the sincerest upvotes.

And if you are a non Steemian reading this, what are you waiting for? Sign up! Post your blog, earn, and experience the nicest this social media platform can offer!

Special thanks to sir @dobartim for the opportunity to share our experience with Steemit on the awesome contest #steemitultimatechallenge he started. This contest is so cool it is now on its 6th week. Same appreciation goes to all the contest sponsors and donors.

Thank you for reading!

Love,
John (and Jonah)