Back when I was 18, I was in hospital with pancreatitis, which I had 6 times that year due to a medication I was taking. It is a painful condition and if the pancreas ruptures, deadly. During these times in hospital, I wasn't able to eat, but I was able to give myself a morphine shot with a button whenever I chose, but there was a minimum limit as to how often.
I would take the painkiller as soon as I could.
It wasn't generally because I needed it, but it was terrible being in hospital, hungry, having family and friends drop buy randomly, while I had tubes up my nose and could barely speak. Anything to take away the time was welcomed.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a button the keyboard that printed money whenever you needed a bit extra?
When I was leaving work today, I looked at my phone and realized my voting mana was at 100%, which is very, very strange. Then I realized that last night I didn't actively read and vote before going to bed and then got buy at work and it recharged. I don't know how long it was that it was sitting full, but a full mana "costs" me, in the sense that my stake isn't earning curation rewards. It is still earning something however, as there is a ~3% interest paid on stake, which by itself is far better than a bank.
Back in the day the dream was to be able to live off curation alone, but I suspect I will unlikely get to that stage consistently enough to actually ever do it. At least any time soon. With the spike a few hours ago though, the old thought crossed my mind and I was wondering what the base level price of HIVE would need to be for me to live off curation.
It is high.
Assuming I would need to cover my current earning, plus more for a buffer and pay the taxes etc,
the floor price of HIVE would have to be somewhere around €6. That is about 20x up from where we are, and it could very well get there in the next blow-off run on the markets, but it would have to stay there in order to live off curation alone. Of course, if it did get there I would be able to sell some of my holdings, pay off the mortgage early and therefore, require less per month for living expenses.
While this is just a fanciful dream for the future, I was also thinking about the past. It will soon be seven years of creating content on this blockchain and that amounts for me, to tens of thousands of hours work, nearly all during the night, every weekend and around my other paid work in the real world.
What is an appropriate return on the investment?
People often cite the "could earn more flipping burgers" argument in terms of payouts, and that is valid. Even as someone who does earn quite well in relation to Hive, I could earn more (in less time) at McDonald's, a job that I know I can do and I am (was) very good at. But, do I want to work at McDonald's when I could be pressing buttons here?
And this brings up the conversation of the value of personal time, which is again often cited. People think that their hourly rate on Hive should be similar to what it is in the real world, or what they would like to get in the real world - if they had a job. But, that is not the case, because there are other values of time other than money. For example, if I could earn the same working a fast food job, I value the activity I perform on Hive a hell of a lot more. But, if that fast food job was to say, pay me 10x, I might forgo the value of writing and instead flip burgers.
After all, it isn't my main job.
However, jobs can give meaning and purpose and while I earn significantly more as an employee, I don't get anywhere near as much meaning out of my work as I do out of Hive. I have a good job, work with talented, interesting, and friendly colleagues - but I don't get that sense of "changing the world" like I do on Hive.
For instance, if I was going to be remembered for my work, I would rather be remembered for my work on Hive, than as my work as a Sales Enablement manager. It isn't because I am better at writing than I am at my job. It is because what I do on Hive is more meaningful for me, which is why I would rather put my effort into this, than focusing solely on earning money.
And I think that it shows in my work that I am interested in this, and it isn't because I write daily or because of what I write about. It is because of the way I write. I am in here, it is me, my experiences, my personality, my character. I can be many things, and all of the things I have been to this date, have likely appeared in some form on this blockchain.
My account is me.
And I find this strange, that I have monetized myself, by being myself. It isn't about building my "personal brand" like an influencer, because I don't want to live that life of conflict where there is a difference between the digital persona and the real me. I also don't want to live in fear of being discovered as being that difference.
You get me?
You get me.
And I haven't changed that much from the kid I was all those years ago taking IV morphine whenever the machine said I could. The difference is that then I was looking to avoid people and the world, to numb myself from my own experience. Here, I press that button daily to improve myself, to become more aware and hopefully connect with and help people in their lives too. Rather than running from suffering, I am trying to understand the causes.
And, I think that this is part of how I built my mentality for investing, for looking long into the future of Hive, because I know that the road isn't likely to be smooth or comfortable. It is going to be filled with pain and challenge. Waiting for better times is wasting the time we have to make those better times. Becoming numb to the problems is to choose complacency, to say, "this is not my responsibility" and once we do that, we give up our ownership, give up our agency, and become irrelevant.
A lot of people are struggling for relevancy in this world, and they are looking for a place where they have meaning, where they feel like they have a purpose. But, most are looking externally only, as if there is a perfect place out there for them, a perfect job, a perfect partner. But, we can never have meaning by doing what others expect of us, if it isn't meaningful to us.
Making money isn't that hard, though it seems incredibly difficult. The real problem with it is if we are willing to make money regardless of the work we do - what are we willing to sacrifice? Time? Energy? Morals? Love?
The hard part is making money doing something that we value for what it is, not that we do for a paycheck at the end of the month. The problem is that most of business is largely meaningless, as it is a circle of useless activity, busy work. It is a whole lot of jobs to support activities that don't make us better as individuals, which don't make us better as a society.
Yet here on Hive, I get to make a little money, doing something I love, for a cause I am passionate about, with people who have similar interests, even though they might approach it in a different way. If everyone was working to improve themselves and make the world a slightly better place, wouldn't it become a better place? Working toward building a community where people are able to apply their skills, time and effort to work toward a better future where they feel relevant - is worth the energy.
Money, just like a key, opens doors.
Where that door leads us, depends on which we open.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
This is one of top articles I have read from you and so many points that we are in agreement. And I feel I am at that stage of finding relevancy and not sure if it's an age thing or Covid or some other excuse. Reading holoz0r's post the other day where he feels he is stuck in a runt sort of hit close to home.
I think I always had a decent relationship with money and have always said I don't always work for the money, but I am realistic enough to know how important money is for everything. So for me the job is always just a job to pay for the things that I want to do. I do not identify with it nor wish to be. What my true identity is, that's the question that I am not sure of as well.
Just read Hol's post. Yeah - we all feel like that sometimes - sometimes it becomes a lot of the time.
Identifying with a job is what breaks old people apart when they retire and find they don't know who or what they are anymore. It is a road to pain. However, identifying with personal growth is a path that is endless, even if the activities might change. We can all be a bit better physically, but as we age, the return on the effort diminishes fast, so we could then turn more time and attention toward something else. Ultimately, we all end up identifying with something, so we may as well try to make it something worthwhile to us.
Yeah I hear you man. I could certainly earn more “money” working my second job instead of hive but I think hive is a different environment. One of the things is like it’s remote work, where you can do it wherever whenever you’d like. A physical location job you can’t do that. It’s good when you can be working your full time job, hop on hive for a few minutes, curare, drop a few comments and get back to your job. You wouldn’t be able to do that flipping burgers. It feels very 2023 to be able to do these types of things and that’s pretty cool of a feeling. Most people are working jobs that are 30-40 years behind technologically but being on hive we are on the cutting edge of a lot of this stuff so it’s pretty darn cool.
I hate when my voting power gets to 100% as well as my resource credits lol I always feel like I’m missing out on something! With voting, usually following Curangel allows me yo make sure that I never make the mistake of getting to 100% since those curators are out there 24/7. Just a thought!
It is interesting to think about living off the hive earnings themselves. I was jotting a few thoughts down the other day about that and I don’t know where hive has to be for me to feel comfortable extracting some to do something. Paying off a mortgage would be sweet though with it lol
And curation is seven days too.
And where are all the younger Millennials and Zers? They don't get it yet - not enough experience.
Yep! I don't follow any trail though, so I stay active. I can't remember the last time I "screwed up" and got to 100. The Curangel curators are very active. I can barely submit a post! :D
When it is hard to earn, it is harder to sell.
It's really important to find the balance between spending time on worthwhile work and finding meaning. It's nice to think that the Hive platform can contribute to this balance
It definitely helps me find balance and I think it helps others too. I am here a lot, but it doesn't take that amount to get benefit.
Some want to communicate and others want to be informed. There are also those who want to show their art and others who seek the beauty of nature in their art. The balance between work and vocation is essential. I am not sure if this balance exists in HIVE, but what is certain is that it concentrates an infinite number of people from all over the world, each with their own skills and their own needs, some to show and others in their search.
We all want to be informed, at least in our own minds. Flick a slide on a powerpoint presentation and everyone in the room will start reading it to see if it has value for them, to know before others.
It can't exist in the code, it can only reside in the person.
If possible, I would be fine earning $0.25 on my own and then $1.00 working for someone else. But, given that life is expensive and not getting any cheaper I don't really have a choice in the matter, at least not yet...
supplementary income is going to be increasingly important. Getting a payrise outside of the job, is likely the only way a person is going to be able to keep up with inflation.
I think this is why I try to be more selective with the work I choose to do. At this point, it is to a fault. But I'm even having trouble finding service jobs willing to take me on. I wonder if they are skeptical about someone with 2 masters degrees working beside them in retail. For what it's worth, I think I would be a badass budtender! 🥦💨
A budtender! Damn, Finland sucks...
🌳💨
Imagine I learned about compounding and the dividend stocks in my early 30s. Haha. That is too late for my judgment and growth. I kind of realized that life would be lot different if I had invested into the dividend income based stocks. Making money gets harder now that automation and AI is going to hurt the white collar jobs too.
I learned about it at school, did some economics at university, as well as accounting... When did I start actually applying it? nearly 40! :D
It is going to get harder in many process fields, as well as content fields that don't offer anything unique. But, there are other options, for now too.
hive price stayed lot stable in the bear market let's hope for the bull I know the feeling of being in a hospital now we have our phones but back then it was tedious and painful as hell passing time
It was pretty stable all up, but I am hoping for a stable price around a dollar after the next bull. That would be awesome. The one after, say 2028/9 it would be great to have a base around 5 :)
Income from curation is about 10% per year, which is a good income. Income from HBD rates 20%. The most important thing is to diversify your assets at a good HIVE price. The time will come to sell HIVE for HBD. And the time will come to sell HBD (and buy Hive). Done right, it will be good for your personal account and the Hive ecosystem.
HBD is better, but it doesn't (shouldn't) benefit that much from market movement.
Yes. At some point :)
It is a shame that if everyone would have lots of money it would lose value. The world where everyone would be rich would be interesting.
In a world where money was unlimited, it would be driven by resources. People would soon be poor again! :D
I feel that we all should practice the attitude of balance. Almost all of us here have offline jobs so we should find time to attend to our offline jobs and also find the time to come on here so to earn from curation and all...
Many do, many don't. I have no idea what some are doing offline! :D
I've also started to delve into the world of having more than one stream of income. Not easy but it certainly isn't impossible at all too.
Consistency is the real key. Although having Hive pump up enough to live off curation rewards, well that would be splendid right! If you can only replace your salary with something else that generates more or less the same, more would be better. But if so then you've got more time on your hands to make even more money with.
But getting that extra income without having to put in a lot of extra effort is the thing.
!BEER
Even if I could technically live off Hive, I would continue to work at something outside too, because, why not? If you have a farm with 5 fields, why only use two of them to generate growth?
Yes I do understand that...
But if I was able to get my salary from Hive. What I would do is finish my studies and then I would quit my job. Not for the sake of sitting at home but for the sake of finding or building something for myself rather than slaving away for someone...
Yes building something is going to take a lot of time, but I'd rather struggle on for a few more years and have something spectacular at the end of the road.
Investing is hard and I tend to think that a job as a stable income source is way better. I just prefer it that way and I leave open Hive as a way to earn an income in the future. It's not impossible but it might take a while before I can even get close to that level.
Jobs are great - especially good jobs that bring value outside the paycheck. It is more stable and rewarding, and gives the opportunity to invest and lose, without having to worry about next month's rent.
Some people may think of their activity on Hive as work, but I see it as pleasure. When dealing with pleasure, you do not care about getting paid, it is just the pleasure of doing what drives you. Of course as there is money involved, we tend to forget about ONLY pleasure every once in a while and analyze it as work or yield, but if we take a look at accounts from "old" users, we realize those that succeed (if we measure success by account size) are the ones who enjoy Hive.
Precisely! It is a huge point in their survival - they enjoy being here, even through the hard times, they find joy, amusement, friends. This is why I wish more people would engage deeply and share more of themselves too, because that personal network adds to the enjoyment.
I still hold out hope for a day when hive could be a supplemental income to my pension and other investments. It would still take a lot for it to be sustainable, but the potential is there. We just need to take advantage of it.
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This is one thing I talk to my wife about often. She even has said since I retired from the military I seem to lack purpose. Yes, I worked at other IT management jobs, but non ever gave me the sense of purpose I had when in the military service all those years. Now that I am completely retired medically, it has become worse. Blogging on Hive has helped me cope with that. I am still looking for ways to find more purpose within the blockchain and off. I am sure I can, but just haven't found it yet.
I see some users whose HPs remain at %100 during the day, which is a disadvantage both for the account and HIVE, imo. That's why there is hivevote. We should adjust the automatic voting options of our accounts so that HP will never remain at %100.
I get a sense of meaning when helping people. Hive has helped me to unlock creativity, when it made me feel it actually valuable for somebody what I have to say. When you have the "money problem" over your neck is hard to be creative. To let go. So we bound ourselves, as if in the Kierkegard dilemma: Wrap ourselves on ropes to not fall to the siren's song, as in the Odissey.
Here, I can fall on the Siren's song. Earning a bit, and even saving at the same time to support people who also need to know they can fall to their siren's too. Brilliant isn't? I have another siren. And that's psychology. When I fall for that one too, and I am professional, I would like to believe sharing about it in here will also help someone. But I guess that's my fancy dream too.
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