Hiya @progressivechef
Great to see you giving back to the community as you so often do. As still a relative newbie myself to Steemit but having been around for nearly a year now I think I've been through the usual struggles experienced by minnows. So...here is my interpretation of the 5 pics:
Sometimes people get lucky and things just fall into place but one way to guarantee you're closer to your goal today than yesterday is to put the effort in!
On Steemit especially where you'll often put in hard work and see little 'tangible' reward (i.e. payouts etc) it can be easy to give up and hate the platform, the people etc but don't despair because that's one sure way to guarantee you won't succeed! You have to keep trying and don't give up.
Steemit is a fantastic networking platform and I've found that instead of just helping yourself it is imperative to help others too. Helping others helps yourself and once you establish great relationships you'll find yourself wanting to post and comment more for your Steemit friends rather than targeting that elusive payout.
This matters the most I think. You may not think you have anything unique to offer vs those that are gifted at art, creative writing, singing, song writing etc but you're wrong. There is only one you on this planet so if you stay true to yourself you've already separated yourself from everyone else :)
I think the hourglass tells us that it's inevitable that time will pass and life will always prevail - this is not within our control. What is in our control is how we conduct our lives and by extension what we do on Steemit. If time will pass anyway you might as well put your heart into something or do something positive rather than nothing and complain that you achieved nothing!
My 2 cents only, good luck to all on Steemit :D