This is my 8th waiting room in the past 4 months. I´m not saying this as something good or bad but because I want to contextualize this piece of writing that, while it is not about any specific subject, it is about everything flowing through my mind during the past few days.
Maybe you didn´t notice, perhaps you did, but I haven´t written anything substancial for about a week; Yeah, I´ve been doing my contests in order to keep the support flowing towards the newer users but apart from that I haven´t brought anything interesting to the Steemit table.
And I don´t mind. Some users take Steemit as a full time job and altough this platform is my only source of income, and it has been for the past 9 months, I don´t consider posting an obligation or a must do.
There is nothing wrong if someone sets the goal of posting once a day, or 10 times a week or however they want to do it... hell, it makes no difference if they deem themselves a full time Steemian or not but, during the the past few days (or perhaps weeks), I have read a lot of rants from users that used to give the impression that they love Steemit but, it seems to me that the very essence that made other people love their content, is gone.
Without really knowing the truth and risking some negative critics, I can only attribute this rants to one single reason: They are seeing Steemit and blogging as a job, an obligation, a must... instead of taking Steemit, Steem and the blockchain as a plus, something we enjoy, a hobby that allows us to generate money in the form of crypto. Steemit is not a job, it´s a hobby that let´s all of us make money out of blogging... BLOGGING!! Isn´t that amazing!?
It is awesome that people can pay the bills with only Steem, in fact I have a lot of friends from different communities that manage to make a sustainable day-to-day life out of blogging and that is just plain awesome. But what happens if we as a community start to generally depend on crypto earnings? There is going to be people who maybe won´t make ends meet at the end of the month, and we are going to have rants about this. The hell, I have been very lucky the past months and I am getting nicer rewards than I ever thought would be possible - which is pretty much why I stopped posting daily, not because I can´t or I don´t have the inspiration or ideas, but because I think it would be greedy from me to post daily making +$150 in rewards... sometimes is nice to take a break and let other people get their share of the pie - but perhaps if I stopped earning these rewards, I would write a rant where my self entitlement perception of life would come afloat; luckily, I´ve only stated these rants with people close - or that used to be close to me - and gotten to a better understanding of our beloved Steemit.
I can only say one thing: Making Steemit our only source of income is hard and it takes balls to do it but, we know the posibilities that could derive from this decision. I know that at some point I can just stop earning rewards and puff, I end up back to where I started - hopefully a bit wiser - but I promise I will try my best to not make a rant.
To be critic and real, honest and direct: A well written post criticizing the platform is received as something that can build a better Steemit, on the other hand, a rant falls on deaf ears and it only builds up negativity and defensive positions towards and from our fellow steemians.
That´s all, plain and simple. To explain our point in a civil way can do wonders... to rant about certain subject will take us nowhere and we will only tire ourselves.
Moving onto another subject...
The Steemit burnout syndrome
I think we´ve all had this one at some point, some more frequently than others, some deeper than others... well, if you´ve been here for more than 3 months, then you´ve felt it.
Let me tell you something: There is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we take Steemit so seriously that we forget that we have a life outside the computer. If you feel like you are taking you Steemcomittment too far from sane standards, take a few days off.
I know I´ve done it. And I´ve done it with 20 dollars in my pocket in a Country I´m not from. I know people who´s done it even when they stop earning big money from blogging and autovotes. There is nothing wrong with taking a few days off and putting things into perspective... believe me, it works.
Another though...
I read a post about a girl who posted about suicide and improving her life, I know it got flagged by our Grumpy friend, I read the post about this set of doings and I left a comment in her post letting her know about my support and how she can always reach up to me for support... I don´t think I got a reply, perhaps she didn´t read it or maybe she thought I was being condescending... I´m not sure but I want to reach out to anyone who is reading this:
If you have a post that you think deserves nice rewards - but really, a good post, a post from the heart, written in the middle of the night with tears in your face - feel free to send it to me on Steemit.chat (@anomadsoul) or over discord (#8841 @anomadsoul). Do not pay for votes to reward these kind of posts where you expose your inner secrets, where you tell us about your life achievements and circumstances that changed your life...
Send it to me. Those posts written from the soul deserve organic votes... I know I have written them and luckily I´ve gotten some organic support towards them, so feel free to send me a DM. I can put on trending a post at least for a few minutes and you don´t have to pay me anything to vote big on your heart exposing post.
My plane is about to board
I want you to know that I´m still a minnow with just a big delegation that can end any moment now, and I know how hard it is to get support some time (I haven´t forgotten), so do not hesitate to hit me on discord or steemit.chat from time to time and send me deep posts, I assure you I will read it and vote accordingly.
Pardon me about my post editing and perhaps some typos that you may find within the post, I am writing this on my cellphone and you know what? I don´t like it but sometimes inspiration hits you in the weirdest of place and word keep flowing. Feel free to discuss any subject here and please, DO NOT take this personally, I´ve been speaking with a lot of people about all of this subjects and read a fuckton of posts about these topics, so I´m not directing this post to anyone in specific, I am *ranting* about my thoughts about this delicate subjects... well,l I hope this is not taken as a rant, it is a post written from within trying to put myself in your shoes and trying to give advice the best way I can: Being crude and direct.