Give and You Shall Receive: Learning About STEEMIT Karma

This post is all about the power of giving and how that works in your behalf by generating what I consider to be Steemit Karma.
If you're interested in this concept and if you want to learn how it worked for me, then this is the post for you.

So, this may seem like a strange title, and a bit cliché as well. In fact, I know it to be cliché, but I also knew that these sayings get people's attention.

Why?

Because the Human Mind likes patterns, it likes what is familiar and it hates changes or new things... the Status Quo should be enforced at all times if our genetic programming is to have its say.

Why?

Because we evolved to fear change... if we're alive and well, why change things? If you're a caveman and you're well fed on berries, why risk changing your job from forager to hunter just to have meat? You could get killed by a Sabertooth tiger!

But why this intro? What does this have to do with Steemit and its economy?

Well, it's all connected, and that's what I'll talk about in this post.

Challenging the Status Quo: Kill Your Sabertooth Tiger!

The intro was all about getting you the right frame for this problem:

The Game is Rigged!

The game of life is rigged, we're all taught to study, get a job, marry, have children, raise them, pay for their tuitions and when we complete those jobs society gives us, we find out we're old, decrepit and with no patience.
People have dreams... everyone has dreams! You'd be surprised at the amount of people who say they'll work towards their dreams on their retirement. I hear it a lot.
The problem is that when retirement comes, they're tired. That ship has sailed.
You only live once, and it is your responsibility to chase your dreams, to challenge what society tells you to do, grab a spear and kill that Sabertooth tiger that is Status Quo!
Why should you stick to berries if your stomach growls for meat? Why should you starve during the winter if the world has abundant resourcesthat increase with each technologic breakthrough?

Why?

The truth is, you're programmed that you have to work in order to live. That isn't true. You have to give value in order to live, you have to contribute to society if you want to live. Not slave away on an 8 hour per day job.

The Wheat Farmer: Waiting for a Living

I like to quote the authors I'm influenced by, although I won't be able to do it this time, I simply don't remember who said what I'm about to tell you.
So, this great mind I don't remember to whom it belong said that Wheat Farmers would labour during harvest and the times it would take to process their harvest.
Then, they would spread the seed again and wait.
Wait...
...
They would wait for a huge time of their lives. They would live, they would help other people, they would go work on other people's fields and they would wait.
So, if in medieval times you could wait so much, why do we run after so much tech advancement?
Now, to write my previous post about @slothicorn , I researched a lot and found many mentions of "The Gift Economy". This may seem something new to many, but it is actually what drives everything forward in every sector.

Before you ask... Bankers do it too!

Corruption only happens because the corrupt know a gift based economy is way more powerful than the scarcity oriented economy we're used to seeing.

So, they grant favors, they gift, and in turn are promoted and get their due.
This is a "Dark Side" use of the Gifting Economy, but it is a use nonetheless.

Unlock The Power of the Gift Economy

So, if the Gift Economy is being used by Dark Side users (Politicians, Bankers, SHARKs and more), then why shouldn't you use it on your behalf as well?
This is where Steemit enters the picture. A platform in which your income is dependent not on how hard you work (though that heavilly influences the outcome) but on how much people are willing to give you.
Of course, if you work hard and people take notice, they'll feel more inclined to share the wealth with you, but at the end of the day, it all has to do with what people give you through their votes.

If someone votes for you everyday, and someone does not and you have only 1 vote available, to whom are you going to give it to?

The above example illustrates how you're prone to giving to people who give to you, and this is how everything worked when the farmer could rest for a great part of the year.

Contribute to the Platform: Love Steemit, it will Love You Back

So, what are you supposed to do with all I've written above? You're supposed to come to the conclusion that Steemit, the abstract entity that is owned by all of us and puts the rewards in your plate, is gifting you every day. The community is gifting you every day.

How can you repay it?

There are a lot of things you can do in order to gift to STEEMIT, the community, as a whole:

Don't abuse the rewards pool;
Promote the Platform;
Tell everyone about Steemit;
Support decentralized Blockchains;
Invest into Decentralized Cryptos with a solid project;
Contribute towards community projects (Check for ex. @utopian-io , @slothicorn);
Join and Help Solid Communities (Check for ex. @adsactly, @Steemitbc);
Hold Your STEEM tokens or Invest into Steem Power;
Learn about what Witnesses do and Support your Witnesses of Choice;
Make a project based on the Steem blockchain...

...and more!
There are many ways you can contribute.
Gift the community, Steemit and the blockchain and don't expect a thing back.
The truth is, you're going to get rewarded anyway, because this is how STEEMIT Karma works.

In @taskmaster4450 's latest post, he mentioned how I grew up fast here in Steemit, and I can tell you it was because I engaged with the community and helped it in any way I could...
...in turn, everyone helped me back.

Steemit Karma works... I'm your living proof.
Cheers!

Communities to check out:

Slothicorn's Discord: Create Crypto Currency Related Art and Be Rewarded For It;
ADSactly's Discord: Autonomous Decentralized Society Acting Cooperatively To Leverage You;
Utopian.io: Rewarding Open Source Contributors;
SteemitBC's Discord: A New User and Community Incubator.