If you have read any of my previous blogposts or have been following me for a while, you may have some or a lot of idea about my story and how I joined Steemit and what it means to me. The phrase 'following me' just brought me immense joy in a couple of seconds because it made me realize that I have a small army of my followers who follow my work and acknowledge it. Yes, a lot of those followers aren't genuine but even if 5 people follow my work regularly, it means like a lotttt to me.
Having followers and acknowledgement is something I yearned for quite some time, but something that only Steemit provided me with. Steemit has been in my life for a little over 5 months and in these 5 months, it has created a special place in my life and I won't be wrong in saying that it has done the same for many of us. Steemit is definitely that special. Oh its what you do to me... Oh its what you do to me.. Yes I am actually humming that tune.. And if you didn't get it, the reference was to the Delilah song. Loved that song a lot when I was around 16.
My state when I joined Steemit
When I joined Steemit, I was in a really dark and low place emotionally. My husband wasn't earning well, in fact not at all and all the financial pressure was on my shoulders. That wasnt it. We were having fights constantly and that was upsetting our family a lot. I was mad at my husband for not trying harder and he was mad at me for not understanding him even though that was exactly what I was doing for the past 4 years of our marriage.
One day my husband told me he had found his gateway to success aka Steemit and was super excited about it. He happily blogged on it for 3 weeks hut when he didn't saw big bucks flying in, he gave up on it. However, seeing my consistency, he encouraged me to join it and use it as a platform to blog since he knew how eager I was to have my own blog but couldn't start it because of a lack of funds.
I was a little hesitant to join Steemit mainly because of the word crypto attached to it. You see, I am the sort of person who ducks down the minute she hears any hard core technology or finance related words because her brain shuts down and triggers the fight or flight response instantly. Jokes apart, I had no idea of what cryptocurrency was even after being lectured on it many times by dear husband. However I did want to have my own blog and Steemit did seem like a nice opportunity so I thought to give it a try.
In the start, I used to write my posts but ask my husband to publish them because publishing posts on Steemit seemed difficult to me. My husband is quite lazy at times so after about a month, I finally decided to take matter in my own hands and learnt how to publish my posts. Honestly, I felt so so proud of myself at that time. I conquered one of my biggest fears and learned to do something I found challenging on my own. Yayyy. I was really happy then and was thankful to Steemit for making me go out of my comfort zone and learn something. I also felt quite independent then cos I no longer had to request husband dear to publish my posts and could do them whenever I had written something.
More positive changes came flooding in
This was just one of the many positive changes Steemit brought into my life. As a I engaged more with people on Steemit and as I read more life stories and experiences of people, I started exploring myself and my genuine desires more and soon I realized that my ultimate goal was not to become filthy rich or a millionaire. Yes, I do yearn for financial independency and freedom and money does have a lot of importance in my life but I don't want to become a billionaire or a millionaire for that matter. My main goal is to create a money making machine that helps me earn a decent amount of income and to help my family grow, prosper, be happy, pursue their goals and make the best use of their life and this includes my husband, son, mother and siblings. Honestly that is what I truly want and yes I want to be heard and help ppl benefit from whatever I know and learn from them. Steemit has given me a chance to do the latter free of cost because now I have my blog and I can easily express myself here.
Also by going through the life stories of people, I realized what I genuinely wanted and stopped creating false goals like become the best public speaker or the best self help author with the most sold copies blah blah. Yes these were once my goals but since they weren't genuine ones , I never enthusiastically pursued them.
Improved my meaning of spirituality
Not only that, but Steemit also helped me understand the true meaning of spirituality and explore it which has done wonders for me. Here, I would like to give a big shout out to @ecotrain and all its esteemed members who broadened my horizons and improved my mindset through their brilliant work. Special shout out to @eco-alex, @likedeeler, @ecoinstant, @sashagenji, @vangelov, @michellecarter, @hopehuggs and @lightsplasher.
Another big improvement that I observed in my personality was becoming more accepting towards different people and their ideas. @lightsplasher helped me improve and learn enormously through his brilliant journal entries. His thought process is profound and the way he perceives everything around him is truly amazing. I am always inspired by him and he is definitely one of the guiding lights in my life.
I stopped judging my husband for not trying hard enough and started taking more interest in his struggle. I found out that he did try hard enough to settle into day jobs but somehow the inner fight he had within never let him rest and made him quit. He had a lot of interest in finance and trading but couldn't pursue it because of a lack of funds.
However since he wanted to help me out with the money matters and become more financially secure and stable, he kept trying things but nothing really was working. He had written a few books for me as a ghost writer but he was too slow so he gave that up. I write books as a ghost writer and I hire writers too so he did some work for me but he wasn't efficient and mostly he ended up asking.me to complete it which made things more miserable. To top it, I enrolled my son into a school at that time and my routine became more hectic than ever.
However things kept moving on. My husband was giving a home tuition so he was bringing home some money but more was definitely his goal. He decided to gibe one more try to writing books for me but after taking one book after another for 3 weeks and not completing any, we realized this wasn't working for him. At that time, I was quite dismayed but still had not lost hope so I sincerely prayed to Allah for some miracle and so it did happen.
More good stuff happened
About 2.5 months after joining Steemit, I came across @beingnaveed and we quickly clicked. He is an amazing guy and I loved his lively demeanor. He introduced me to @ghulammujtaba and I liked his work a lot too. I was really happy to meet some great Pakistanis who were doing original work on Steemit.
We decided to meet and made a pact to grow together on Steemit. I was really delighted and perceived it as a great achievement. So the three of us along with a few more buddies used to talk regularly on whatsapp and inform each other of different contests on Steemit and share tips to grow.
One day, @beingnaveed messaged that the price of SBD had suddenly gone way up. Since both my husband @muhammadyasir and I didn't keep much check on the price of Steemit and SBD, we weren't aware of that and when we did find that out, we couldn't believe it for quite a while. We cashed the good amount of SBDs we had earned, it was around 100sbd and during that time, my husband found his long lost love for trading and started trading in cryptocurrencies again. Now he is doing this is as a side job and plans to understand it more and take it to a bigger level. He has now found something that he is passionate about, can do nonstop and something that does not tire him. Honestly, if it weren't for Steemit, I wouldn't have found Naveed and Mujtaba and if it weren't for these two mustached and bearded angels respectively, my husband and I wouldn't have recognized the importance of paying attention to the platform you work on and he wouldn't have finally found something he loves doing. Cannot thank you guys enough and yeah Mujtaba, will treat you at Cafe Jade ;)
If it weren't for Steemit, I wouldn't be here and wouldn't have found so many amazing people here. I have mentioned many of the lot but there are so.many of them that my list just keeps growing longer. To @getonthetrain for being so generous and supportive. To @jaynie for being so kind, sweet, helpful and for initatng #steemitbloggers. To @mariannewest for being so wonderful, supportive and helpful. To @reddust for being so genuine and inspiring and to @zord189, @topkpop, @papa-pepper and @tattoodjay for showing how being generous is important to help the community grow. Last but definitely not the least, to @surpassinggoogle for being so compassionate to devote your time and efforts to help us grow. All of you, each and everyone of you make Steemit a special place for me- a special place I can call home.
Love and light for you now and always,
Sharoon.
I am posting through my phone since my laptop is still unwell so I don't have the images of the wonderful communities I am a part of: @ecotrain, @steemiteducation, #thealliance, #steemitbloggers.