I actually invested late on the first boom phase and it was hard to stay in steem power but even though I had lost a lot of my investment, I actually bought even more twice close to bottom.
Originally I invested to hold for at least 2 years and I'll be planning to do at least that, hopefully no need to sell at all ever. That would be the best case scenario.
I admit I cashed out most of my rewards which i used to help pay off my college loans. I regret it now, but I only have about 10k loans left out of 50k and that is thanks to steemit. I will never forget what steemit has given me.
You shouldn't feel too bad. Being debt free soon is amazing and will enable you to make future investments with ease of mind.
You could have bought some useless stuff, now that would feel horrible.
We are all lucky to be here right now. Who knows what future has in store for steem and crypto overall.