A Tale of 1000 HIVE : It's all about decisions

Hello readers,

I do not consider myself half of a writer. But when I came across the fantastic Writing contest some days ago, I suddenly got a spark in me to leave my daily splinterlands post for a day and try writing something else. The contest is organised by @bdcommunity and the theme is You have Earned 1000 HIVE, What Would You Do Now?. Link

The first thing that did draw my attention was the theme. It was simple, but it was unique and Honestly speaking, after reading the post when I asked myself what would I do with that much money, my brain really got messed up receiving tons of ideas!

But like any other lower/middle-class man, all my ideas were stereotype as the core of all my ideas were targeted on how to spend them to fulfil one of my wishes. I am currently working for a private software company at an entry-level post. My office is in Kolkata city which is far away from my home. I use to stay in a PG (Paying Guest) in Kolkata and visit my home on weekends. I use public transports daily to travel between my PG and the office and also when I go home. traffic congestion in Kolkata city has always been a dilemma to us commuters, especially at peak times. It usually takes me 1 hour time to travel to the office as the road got crowded with thousands of cars and busses at office time. Please note that my distance between my office and the PG is only 12 Kilometer. To get relief from this daily unavoidable excruciation, I wanted to have a motorcycle for my daily journey. I am already saving a little amount every month from my salary for my 2 wheeler goal and a fat 1000 HIVE could help me a lot to execute that goal as that much HIVE alone can pay one-third of a decent commuter motorcycle. Well, it was not the only idea that got into my mind but it was the strongest one.

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But when I was chatting today in the Neoxian server, a sudden thought crossed my mind. We were talking about splinterlands as usual and I rediscovered that till now, I haven't invested a single penny in the blockchain! Well, I am not really proud of myself that I haven't invested physical money in my 3 years of blockchain life. I have witnessed many successful projects grown from seed, many times I thought to invest a decent amount of money but my financial condition never gave me the freedom to do so. I belong from a lower-class family where my father was the only earning person until I got a job last November. I also have a brother who is now studying at college and I got raised up seeing my father's struggles and my mother's sacrifices to give us a good living. My father works in Sells and for the last 3 months, due to this unavoidable lockdown, he is without work and all we have to run our family is my little paycheck (around 800 hives per month) which I am getting working at home for my company. So spending money on non-necessity things was always beyond my league.

When I first joined steem and self introduced myself to the blockchain world, all I wanted to make was a stable passive source of income. Back then when I joined steemit, I was just a college pass out without a job and the only thing I had with me is my free time. So, I started reading and writing posts every day and tried communicating with this brand new world that I just entered. I met some good people who helped me a lot to stand here and now we have become families.

One big lesson that I learned here is that money makes money. Now, this may sound unpleasant but this is the ultimate truth that no one can deny. Since my joining, I have invested back what I have earned from the blockchain and after spending 3 years here, I can proudly say I made the right decision.

I literally started from 0. I started my blogging journey by posting photography posts on steemit. The only thing I had was 15 rented SP in my wallet. Unlike now, Back then bots were the ruler of steemit and most of the posts on trending/hot pages were artificial and non-worthy. Some good curation programs and communities were there to support organic writers but very few in numbers. I used to get only a few cents on my posts but still, I sparked a ray hope inside me. I started posting every day and tried to communicate with other users. Some of them were amazingly helpful and with the help from them, I really started to learn how it really works.

In my 3 years, I have never done a transaction to the exchanges to sell my digital assets. Instead, I have invested all my earnings back here. Today, I have really a good collection of Splinterlands cards and also large stakes of some of my favourite Tribe tokens. These 3 years I have gone over multiple rough financial situations and I thought many times to sell my assets to solve some of my problems. But. today I am glad that I didn't choose that path and that decision is earning me 10-15 times of what I used to earn at my initial days.

So, what I will do the 1000 hives?

Well, let me be absolutely truthful here. First of all, I will use some of it to invest in Splinterlands. I have some non-max alpha cards whom I will max out so that I can win more prizes from tournaments. I truly believe this game has the potential and it will break the procedural way of gaming in the near future. I have seen this project grow from seed and at this point, I blindly trust this game to invest in.

Secondly, I cannot deny the fact that whatever I am now it's only because of those who selflessly helped me over a long time. As a newbie, I could lose my interest but many wise hearts helped me without looking for personal gain or expectation and I would like to continue that awesomeness for the future generation. There are many curation projects in hive blockchain that helps newcomers in every aspect to give them a boost to grow. I will give all the rest of my Hive to one of my favourite communities for the sole purpose of helping new users here.

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Last but not least, I went through many other entry posts and I have experienced different types of thoughts expressing their views and many of them want to help others, especially in this lockdown situation. Some posts were very painful even to read as I can relate myself somewhere with them. But from my experience, if you are only giving them out some quick cash, then it may give them temporary relief for some time but will not solve their poverty problem. Rather, I would ask you all to help them stand on their own feet so that they don't have to ask for help from anyone anymore. I think Empowerment is the only solution to remove poverty permanently from our society. I hope you will agree with me.

There is a lot to write from my side but I afraid the end of this contest is about to happen very soon as I am writing this blog very late. I want to thank @bdcommunity as they brought up this innovative contest idea I will look forward to more contest posts like this one.