I have noticed a building trend of netizens in various forums and social media platforms looking for ways to earn money online without investment. Most even specify that their hope is that the task will not be difficult. This is the same as asking "how do I make easy money?"

Nobody should get comfortable with easy money, lest free money. You may find ways to make quick bucks, but it will never amount to anything significant. There is no such thing as free money, if you think I am wrong about that please let me know in the comments.

Most is not all of us want financial freedom, we also want to have more time to do things we really enjoy doing. For me this will be spending time with family, learning new things, reaching out to the community, growing things, and contributing to a better future of our planet. These are the same reasons why I am continuously learning to trade, farm, and contribute to this platform. Not because I think those are easier than what I currently do in my day job, but rather because I am more passionate about those, and I believe it will allow me to take more control of my time.

If your expectation of trading is being like this guy who sits by the beach with a portable and make lots of money, then you'd be gravely mistaken. I mean yes, you can execute trades this way, you can even do it with a mobile phone, but only after hours of going through the business news, financial statements, multiple time frame charts, running multiple scans, and watching tickers in large computer screens.

The most successful traders work even when the market is closed. Traders are some of the most focused people I know.

The same way that the joy in farming is not without hard work. If traders are the most focused, farmers are the most hard working. They wake up really early, they go out to tend to the crops and livestock regardless of weather, and they get no day off.

My grandparents were farmers, and I've personally experienced the hard work required in farming. This is specially true in a developing nation like the Philippines where we still plow using water buffaloes, where technological innovations enjoyed by first world farmers are not available.

So, is Steemit easy money? The short answer is no. I remember our English teacher in high school who would often tell us that if only second-hand brains can be sold, ours will be very expensive - because they are slightly used lol! So for someone with the quality of my slightly used brain, this is certainly not easy and I am glad that it is that way. If this was easy:

• I wouldn't be as intrigued by how this works.
• I wouldn't have been comfortable continuing on.
• I wouldn't have gotten the reward of continuously trying to better myself.

Even @surpassinggoogle who made "mining with minds" famous had to go through the build up stage. I looked at the older posts of the most successful Steemians of today, and just like you and me, they had to work hard to get to where they are now.

Now there are people who do better than most, what about those? There are ways to advance in the platform faster. Some are good, and some are not so good. In my observation, people who do well (using the good ways) here faster than most either invested their money, or worked twice as hard as a normal Steemian. I don't think everybody is willing to do that. There are those of course who used other distasteful ways, and eventually found knocked down by whales whose stakes in the platform are of much weight.

Photo Credits:
Make Easy Money Online
Trader by the Beach
Rice Farmers
Brain Maze