How did Steem become so important in my life? | sbdpotato 10% beneficiary

^{Source: Wikipedia}

I'll be honest, it's a bit weird to write a post like this (at least for me), I've never asked myself "How important is Steem in my life?" and it's kind of hard to give me a "simple" answer. So now that @theycallmedan started this initiative, I'll take the opportunity to answer this question and also show you how important Steem can be in someone else's life.

All start with a friend

I joined Steem thanks to a friend, it was something "magic" because he told me that Steem allows you to earn money even by posting memes, a "social network" where "likes" are worth money. It was really just incredible how he defined me Steem, me, completely excited and fascinated by the existence of such a platform (he had already confirmed to me that he made money here). But, as expected, I was completely disappointed.

Obviously not everything was rosy, I joined Steem and there were so many gaps and so much misinformation that I simply had to investigate for myself where I was.

I was stuck for a long time in the thought of "I must make quality articles and this way I will earn money" that I never thought that this is a community, I never bothered to visit other users' blogs or give my opinion somewhere, I just joined a project that benefited me and that was it, a new source of income. Obviously, in all this time I helped users to join the projects where I was, I met many people who, like me, were going through hard times (incredibly some of them were not from Venezuela), so I liked to share with them my way of being able to "earn something" here and think that way their life became lighter.

I did well, I'm not going to lie to you, I really did well that way and managed to reach 70 rep, but, while the Steem price was going down, the projects had to adapt to those price changes, which damaged quite a lot the way I was doing things and I couldn't keep doing what I used to do. I started to run out of "something to do" here, which was my time of crisis and I had to redo everything I used to do here.

^{Source: Wikipedia}

But, this wasn't all bad

I was able to earn a lot of money at that time (well, according to my definition of "a lot of money"), I managed to participate in many important projects as time went by and I was very lucky, but I always worked hard to get accepted in every place where I wanted to participate. I also had my rejections, I still remember when I wanted to participate in @utopian-io and I couldn't because of my age :'(

Thanks to everything I did here before, I was able to do incredible things in my daily life that I never thought I would be able to achieve at my age. Just think about it from my position, thanks to Steem I was able to buy my first smartphone when I was only 15 years old, thinking about that is really amazing because I remember perfectly that it cost me $150. That amount was simply absurd for a Venezuelan and, I, with 15 years old could manage to do that amount and be able to buy something by myself. That feeling of satisfaction is not comparable.

I want to take this opportunity to thank @neoxian very much, this user is the one who has allowed me to buy many things that have been fundamental throughout my career here, even the laptop from where I'm writing this post I bought thanks to him. Actually I don't even know if he is a man or a woman or what he does, but in spite of that he/she has helped me in all this time and I am very grateful for that.

^{Photo taken by me @flaws}

Why am I still here?

Lately, I have not been a very active user and this has several reasons, mostly in December I spent time with my family, but also part of January because my birthday was yesterday (I'm 17 years old, yeei) and I was spending time with the people around me. I wanted to do a post on Steem, but I didn't really know what to write and I didn't want to post an "It's my birthday" and already, I still don't feel ready for that kind of thing.

But, answering the question, why am I still here? Because I just think Steem is cool.

Steem has not stopped being a fundamental part in my life, nowadays I don't usually generate a lot of money since I don't publish much in my blog, I know there are users that support me and I really appreciate them, but that doesn't give me the right to "abuse the system" and make 1-2 posts daily.

I am not against publishing daily, actually I would like to be able to publish daily, but I still do not feel ready and I think that the people who support me at the moment are not necessarily there to upvote all my posts. But still, I love them, thank you <3

Each post I make (outside of projects and activities) generates about 10-20 liquid STEEM, about $1.3-2.6 currently. It's not a lot of money at first sight, but, it's enough for me to buy things like a package of cornmeal because it's not even enough for 1KG of cheese or ham.

My content is probably not that great and I admit it, I know there are professional writers here who are amazing and their articles are probably better worked on than mine. It may also be one of the reasons why I don't usually publish so actively, but that's why I want to do more than just make content, I'm working on many more activities and I want Steem to be a better place for everyone. This way, both, cool content creators and, people who make a nice community here and also want to keep their own blog can share the same place and enjoy the benefits.

^{Photo taken by me @flaws}

And yes, I plan to be here much longer

Why would I leave Steem? First of all, financially speaking it represents an important part of my life, leaving Steem would mean giving up many opportunities and would make my life difficult.

Also, here I have met incredible people who have motivated me to do projects that can last for a long time, nothing is tangible yet, but many people have been supporting and motivating me to make it happen. There's no point in leaving Steem when I want to work on something big.

The community here is nice, when I was in the Spanish community I didn't used to make so much connection with other users because I didn't see the point, but I discovered that Steem is much more than what I thought before and yes, it can also be a social network. I can come here, react to what I like (even if I don't have much influence on that aspect) and give my opinion about anything, always being the probability that that "opinion" can be valued by some other user who thinks the same way I do or agrees with it. No other social network offers you that, it doesn't make sense to abandon Steem (even if we've been in better times)

^{Photo taken by me @flaws}

Thanks to Steem I've been able to earn money that I couldn't earn anywhere else, that way I was able to buy things that serve me to this day and that I'll never forget. I was also able to help my family financially and we were able to have better times.

Thanks to Steem I can make articles and give my opinion and that both have an economic value. I can earn money and I can help my family while I can have savings for my future purchases and my personal desires.

Thanks to Steem I can imagine a nice future, so I want to work hard to achieve it. I'm not an investor, I'm not a developer, I'm just a user who wants to do what he can and improve that environment where he works. That's why I want to stay at Steem, it currently represents and I know that in the future it will be very helpful for my life. That's why I want to work hard to make this incredible community much better in the future and, I'll do everything in my power to make sure we all have an incredible future.

Thank you Steem, thank you to the community and thank you to every person who has helped me so far. I hope to be here longer and I will certainly help Steem become much better known so that everyone knows that this amazing site exists.

And thank you @theycallmedan for this initiative <3