Wow, that must have been one of the most honest and open self-reflection post I have ever read here, Rosa.
Well, I think it can be hard to find the balance between being the good Steemian who cares about the welfare of the community and the egoistic Steemian who cares just about his or her own profit. Moreover, this thing is highly individual as we are all different.
In my particular case, it is even a bit more complicated since I have been a full-time Steemian for almost all of my time here (just a few weeks after I registered on Steem - during those crazy times when Steem was close to its all-time high and a lot of people were making ridiculous money here - I was offered an interesting cooperation by one of the big accounts here and that was when I decided to abandon all of the other jobs and project I was working on back then and fully embark on the Steem career). I don´t want to sound pathetic but when your life kind of depends on Steem, the balance between the good and the egoistic Steemian gets affected by that, even if you don´t want to.
So yeah, this is probably why I upvote my own posts (sometimes even comments! talk about a real villain), use bid bots (sometimes), use autovoting (with some people), shitpost (occasionally), still participate in contests (even though it sometimes feels a bit weird and inappropriate with the 72 rep). The good Steemian in me tries to balance that out with manual curation, support of smaller accounts, newbies and my native Czech community, occasional high quality posts that require long hours of work and, most notably, a lot of contest and giveaways where I have already given away hundreds of Steems (in Steem, SBD and SBI).
Am I a value bringer? That´s a question others have to answer... I have just been doing my best to keep the full-time Steemian position (I love the idea of people being able to make their living by doing what they really like) while striving for a reasonably set balance between the two things I mentioned.
As for you, I think there is almost no balance. You are just the good Steemian all over ;) Btw, I have never asked, is Steem your only (or main) source of income too?
Wow, this is probably one of my longest comments on Steem ever. Thanks for inspiring me to put it together :)
Hey @phortun, glad you liked reading it - and even so much so that you made this long and interesting reply! :D
Yes - you touch on an important point here, where is the line between being a good and 'less good' Steemian? I think it's a huge grey scale and I also think we know of a few really bad Steemians, which makes a lot of other behaviour look pretty much GOOD.
I don't think we need to be 100% altruistic to be a good Steemian. If you invest time and even money or in your case your other jobs/carreer to be here and to 'make it here' - then we need some form of 'egoistic' behaviour - or we wouldn't be able to be here at all since we wouldn't make any income/ROI. Your behaviour makes sense to me seeing your story and you try to balance it - in the end it's all up to YOU what you do with your stake.
Every action has a consequence though, so those few Steemians that upvote their own posts 10x a days shouldn't expect a lot of extra community support... Doesn't make their actions 'not okay' - it's just a simple action-reaction thing in my opinion.
Well, I spend the most time here for sure :D As for income, is it income if you don't cash out? Because I don't. So far. I have some targets in my head that if STEEM makes it to those targets I will cash out some :-) I even keep some STEEM liquid for that case. I have som income in Fiat but it's irregular and I can't rely on it, so I'm pretty much in the same boat as you :D
I feel honoured @phortun - you have a lot to say about your story, hope you feel motivated to keep on sharing <3 Cheers!
Thanks for your feedback Rosa, I really appreciate how you always reply to everyone, even though your comment sections are usually very busy (maybe that´s the reason actually :) Yeah, I sometimes feel the urge to say my whole story because people often see only what they want to see or what they can see "on the surface". I used to be accused of having inappropriately big rewards on my posts but what the people didn´t know was that it was actually also my "salary" for working for some other accounts. Moreover, few people know what it really feels like to take that risk and jump in something as risky and unpredictable as fulltime steeming, head first... But I still believe in this thing because I can see its enormous potential. And I am glad to find out that Rosa is in that boat with me haha :)) Thanks again for this inspiring post, it was also interesting to read the comments.
Steem is your only income? That will for sure give a lot of pressure.
If I had to live from my Steem earnings I died 1 year ago. But it explains a lot. It is no longer about just writing good content but a way to survive.
☘💕
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Well, it gives some pressure indeed. Especially when your fiat savings are diminishing alarmingly :D :/