Welcome to the third day of the May 30 days writing challenge. If you don't know what this challenge is about, please have a look at the introductory post. Also, at the end of each article I will post the links to all the posts in the challenge (if you're joining the challenge, I encourage you to do the same). Also, if you join, don't forget to tag your post with #challenge30days and also leave a comment with the link of your post, so I can evaluate if you're one of the 3 lucky Steemians that will get a full upvote from me.
What’s The Best Thing That Happened To You Because Of Steemit?
Hands down, the best thing that happened to me because of Steemit was to discover the real nature of money.
It's probably one of the most disruptive processes that modified my perception of reality. I'll put it on the same level with learning a foreign language or starting to run ultramarathons. All these experiences shaped my current life profoundly and irreversibly.
For instance, I can only write this article now because I learned English (my first language is Romanian). It seems so easy to do it now, because it's already part of my life, but before learning English this would have been impossible. On the same note, finishing a running race of over 200k is something that I consider not only doable now, but good for my health and part of my yearly plans. Before starting to run ultramarathons, running for 5k would have been the biggest achievement of my life.
Theory Versus Practice
Before being so engaged in Steemit I kinda knew, at a theoretical level, that money is just a form of agreement. I wrote about it many times on my other blog, and, to some extent, I knew this was true. But knowing something theoretically, versus experiencing the same thing in practice, well, the difference is huge. Ask anyone who "learned" some stuff about sex, and then, you know, just did it.
It's one thing to "know" that money is a form of agreement and a completely different thing to be part of a consensus group (the Steemit community), understand the consensus rules (inflation, rewards pool, upvoting and curation), and then see some numbers going up on a webpage. And then move parts of that numbers on a plastic card and use it to buy pizza.
That's right, the first purchase I ever made with "Steemit money" was a pizza and it happened just a little over a year ago. Boy, that was the tastiest pizza ever.
The realization of the fact that money has no intrinsic value and it's just a common, shared illusion, is really life changing. Money is probably the most pervasive shared dream we have in samsara and many other parts of our lives are depending on it. So, to realize that this concept is subjective, modifiable by shifting your perspective, was mind boggling.
Around the time I joined Steemit, I experienced a major business failure. As an entrepreneur, I always knew this can happen. It happened before. But this time I barely saw it coming, so it hit me hard. Money was scarce, to use an euphemism. In fact, money was simply out of reach in a very practical way: my bank accounts were frozen and stayed like this for exactly one year (I won't get into details about it, because it's more complicated and closely linked to political shifts in my country, where a part of the country, called "The State" is basically stealing from the remaining part of the country).
In a way, I felt like some doors were violently closing, while others were gently opening. And what I saw behind those opening doors was more than I could ever imagine.
So, the best thing that happened to me because of Steemit was to understand that money doesn't necessarily comes from the governments and it's not something that can be arbitrarily taken away from you. It's part of a common, shared agreement and it's something that you, and only you, have control over it.
Your turn now. Please don't forget to add a link to your post in a comment below.
Previous Posts In The Challenge
- May 30 Days Writing Challenge - Day Two: If You Will Get 1000 STEEM Tomorrow, What Would You Do With It?
- May 30 Days Writing Challenge - Day One: How Did You Get On Steemit?
- Announcing May 30 Days Writing Challenge: Strengthening The Steemit Community
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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