Dreams l Blocktrades/Writers Block Write Your Own Ticket Giveaway

This is an essay about me, written for the @blocktrades + @thewritersblock contest. I have chosen to write this in third person.

It was the year 2017 and Gracious Egedegbe was experiencing real want for the first time. His father had just lost his job so his allowances weren’t forthcoming. He was going to be twenty three that year but he knew his days of dependence were over. To help his pathetic situation, he began to freelance as a writer and typist.

They say necessity is the mother of invention; well, hunger is the father of hardwork. His quest for three square meals forced him to engage in all kinds of jobs. Although a student of English Language, he learned to use TexStudio, an application for mathematicians. He wrote essays in geology and law related courses. Before long, he began to work for a cryptocurrency firm. It was then he learnt about bitcoins. Learn: that was all he did. He couldn’t invest for he had barely enough to live by. In retrospect, if he hadn’t tried to maintain the lifestyle he was used to, you might be reading a different story.

A Birthday Gift That Was Not Timely Opened

In the month of October with only a few days to his birthday, a family friend mentioned Steemit to him. This friend was no writer. However, he had heard that writers had a good chance of making reasonable income from the platform. That was all this friend knew, and that was all he told Gracious. Gracious did not feel he had time for a social media platform. He remembered his futile attempts at running a blog. To please his friend, he opened an account on Steemit and that was it – or maybe not.

It was January 2018 and the cryptocurrency firm Gracious worked with had an event coming up. On the way to the event, the team stopped to attend to another cryptocurrency event. There, Gracious heard about someone who made $100 on a post from Steemit. Even more, the person was in attendance and validated that news. That person is @tojukaka

That night, when the team arrived at the state where they were going to host their event in two days, Gracious had a time sleeping. He barely made up to $50 in a month and someone made $100 from a single post. He did the maths: if Toju made just one post per day, in a month he would have made $3,000. That was over a million naira! For some who struggled to make N20,000 per month, that was over whelming. That night, he also made his first post – a atheistic poem – and dreamt of how he would wake up to see $10 on the post the following morning. He was wrong. It would take more than a month before he broke the $5/post benchmark. @curie made that happen with a $80 up vote.

First Community project - @reachout

Gracious soon had cause to smile and dump all of his other engagements. He was making $100 per months from SBD payouts alone. It might not be much to some people but to him, it was a dream come true. He had always dreamed to get paid from writing; writing what and when he felt like. It was awesome.

Soon, his progress began to haunt him. He was able to make so much because many people supported him. After all, he was a ‘talented’ writer who had just joined the platform. As his payouts steadied, his reputation score rose. Soon, he became ‘too big’ for the support. The sponsors felt he had grown enough to stand on his own; they needed to focus on other talented writers who were still struggling.

To help his situation, Gracious turned to @akintunde for help. @akintunde was a fellow Nigerian he had met through Steemit and had come to admire. Besides, @akintunde then had a reputation score of 61 and over 1000 SP. Gracious then had just about 70 SP and a rep score of 50. Surely, @akintunde was the boss.

Akin informed him that it was time he gave back to the Steemit community. It was then Gracious started organizing contests. With time the contests began to sponsor themselves usually from upvotes and donations from others. Gracious also joined Akin in managing @reachout – a Steemit based community for helping planktons. Due to the failing price of Steem, @reachout had not been able to renew its delegation lease. Things are sure to get better then prices pick up.

Hope Keeps Everyone Alive

Since January 2018, Steemit has been providing Gracious’ meals. Basically, it has been through winning contests, getting upvotes from communities and individuals such as @stach, @wafrica, @naijapidgin, @bigwaves, @curie, @esteem, @ulogs @surpassinggoogle and interacting with the community.

These days, although the upvotes have been fairly consistent with a @curie upvote some two weeks ago, Steem price has made it less valuable. With Steem low price, upvotes yield lower values than they usually do. These days he struggles to even make 2 Steem/day.

But he won’t go. He’s here because he believes in the platform. Steemit for him is more than just a social media. It is a platform that allows him express himself when and how he likes. It’s like he’s being paid for being who he is. Who is he? He’s a thinker and a writer.

What’s more, Steem price is just a reflection of the general cryprocurrency market; it has nothing to do with its value. Steem, Steemit and the Steem blockchain are as valuable as they have ever been. If Steemit is titanic, this sailor is willing to go down with it

Forgive The Digression; About Steemfest

Attending Steemfest is another thing that sounds like a dream to him (same with making good money from writing). Only Steemit can give you the opportunity to realize your dream by simply writing.

The opportunity is one thing; the opportunities available at steemfest is another. Gracious has never been out of his country for starters so this would be a wonderful opportunity. But even more, it would be a rare privilege to be present at the event. He’s certain there’s a lot he would learn that would benefit his community back home.

One more thing: he believes that the world is going towards interdependence. Gone were the days where one man took all the glory. Attending steemfest would allow him network with others in real time, building personal relationships that could transform into greater things.

Right now, attending steemfest is just a dream, like the night he dreamed that he made $10 on a post. Dreams always come true – although sometimes not in the way we expect them. Perhaps this would come true in the way he expect…. All he does is write and believe