So if I get an unexpected windfall of 1000 STEEM magically appear in my wallet there are a lot of things that I could do with it. The first thing that popped into my head is to power up the whole amount and I will be nearer to my Dolphin goal.

From Unsplash - Nathaniel Tetteh

Some would say the easiest way would be to delegate it to a bot and get up to 95% profit. This is what the majority of people are doing on the platform because frankly, curation rewards are terrible. I had tested this on a person that had about 200,000 SP and he was making about 50 SP a day in curation rewards alone so author rewards are not factored but at the most would be at 100 SP a day if added.

Now I compared this with a person I know that was running a bot service and for 200,000 SP he was giving someone about 200 STEEM a day.

Right there you see why most people would take easy street. You don't need to spend a lot of hours online curating, you don't need to build communities or support one, you don't even need to post any content and just let the money roll in, cash out and live the life. As someone I know said it is as if Steem gave you a money printing press without any effort aside from investing.

There is nothing bad in investing and getting paid for it but there could be so much more that can be done.

Why do I want to be a dolphin?

When I first entered Steemit I was a person wrestling with personal demons and depression and so one of the main reasons why I started writing again was for cathartic and healing purposes. There some pretty dark days and looking back at what I wrote from poetry, fiction to Zapples all had dark undertones and my feeling of being unable to see the good in my life.

I was a broken man, waiting for a date but somehow during these turbulent times, I found solace with people who were encountering the same darkness. We formed an unlikely group that understood and held each other without judgment. Only knowing that we will be there for each other.

In a way, they were removing the darkness in my head and making the demons smaller and smaller until I was able to get up again. Once up I knew what my purpose was because I saw Steem as a way of helping other people and in my mind sprung the idea of understanding the abundance mindset and gifteconomy of Steem.

That was my reason of why. My purpose if you will build communities and dreams so that I can help more people. With it came one of my dreams of putting one of the charities that I support in Steem so that we can create an opportunity for our indigenous Aeta brothers and sisters a brighter future. For them to be able to benefit in a gifteconomy environment.

What to do with a 1000 STEEM?

I would power up 500 STEEM so that I can increase the value of my vote. Now for over 2 months now I have not been self-voting as I usually post twice a day. which would be 4% of my total voting percentage.

Since I stopped doing that I have been able to spread my vote more and using @ura-soul's website http://steemocean.com/voter/maverickinvictus it shows that I am able to provide about 730 plus upvotes on a weekly basis to over 283 unique accounts.

By having more value on my votes I would be able to spread it a bit more and touch the lives and support the dreams of people that I comment and curate on.

300 STEEM would be cashed out not for me but to be donated to @giftinkindph. This is a charity organization that I have been working with for the past 12 years that provide school supplies and help in the education of impoverished school children.

2 years ago we had decided to adopt the village of Banawan in Zambales in the Philippines. This is home to an indigenous tribe called The Aetas. They are of Austronesian descent and one of the first settlers of our country, possibly from Papua New Guinea.

Prior to us adopting the school most children only reached grade 3-4 because education is not a priority when you are hungry but through the efforts of the organization, we had our first 6 students who graduated grade school and went to high school. It was a milestone for Banawen Primary School as since its started it never had anyone graduate before.

Each child's budget for school supplies is about P300 Philippines Pesos (about $6 USD) for the school year. We support about 120-150 children so total budget for the school supplies at around $900 USD.

We also allocate some budget for medicine, school supplies for the teachers for chalk, art papers, manila paper and other stuff.

The six students that we are supporting has a monthly budget of P2000 Pesos ($40 USD) or about $7 USD per person. Currently, it is the summer vacation so the funds we allocate for them will be kept for emergency funds they would need like for projects, clothing and etc.

So to put it into context that 300 STEEM will go along way in providing more opportunities for the Aeta children. 300 STEEM would be worth about $1,050 enough to cover the budget for the school supplies and other donations that we will get may be used to create additional infrastructure, supplies and more books.

We might even be able to focus on the entire community as well in providing them with livelihood opportunities.

100 STEEM would be donated to the account @giftinkindph to power up and used to support itself and other charity projects in Steem.

I could have easily just integrated @giftinkindph posts in my account but one of our dreams is to make them self-sufficient and we go as far as having one of the 6 students that we are taking care of in high school to be the one that will handle the account.

It would be awesome if someone from them would take care in posting, curating for other charities and embracing the gifteconomy. It is the humanization of the blockchain technology.

One of the things that their tribal chief told us that pains him is they are slowly losing their culture. What if Steemit would be a way for them to reinvigorate the desire to learn their culture, to be able to save their songs, lore and, dances in the permanent blockchain.

50 STEEM I would donate to the Mental Hospital of the Philippines located in Mandaluyong. Mental health care is something that is not fully supported in my country. A lot waves away mental health issues as mere drama of people.

As such it does not get enough funding. The facilities and care of mental patients are in a dismal state and so every Christmas my team who are HR practioners who most of them interned in the facility and knows their plight donate part of our bonus to them and give gifts to the forgotten.

Lastly, the remaining 50 STEEM would be given to Bahay Tuluyan ( Safe House] a nonprofit organization in the Philippines that tries to help abused children and young women and provide a safe haven for them.

I got to know them when I was working in a company that had their organization as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility program and I immediately loved what they were doing.

When you see the eyes of those children it just melts your heart and you want to help provide them a better future.

One would think why did I not leave anything for me to reward myself or to put it into investment. That would be the smart thing to do but there are so many things and people that need our help. Just like once I needed help people did not hesitate to take care of me. People went beyond self-preservation and thought of taking care of someone else.

In this way, I am just paying it forward. To paraphrase a person that I respect we will take the broken, the hurt, the lonely and the abused and we will turn them Steemians who see the value in life.

What would you do if you get 1000 STEEM tomorrow?

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