Our Obsession With The NOW!
With the upcoming hardfork. I gotta admit I'm worried about the future of the platform. I don't know all the details. But it sounds like we can power down in 13 weeks instead of 104. As I thought about this, I realized something I hadn't before.
Maybe Steemit is not appealing to younger generations.
I assumed it was because the overall set up, Their friends not being on Steemit, etc. But after hearing about this whole power down thing, I realized that many people might not see any benefit to keeping their account powered up for the long term.
We have become so impatient that even the possibility of having hundreds of thousands of dollars in our account in the future, Isn't enough for us to say no to a little money right now.
Some people I want to shake. Like they have this incredible opportunity in front of their faces, Yet they deny it!? How can you be so crazy?
I feel like my Steemit account is this beautiful gift, And I'm so grateful for it. I'm Eager to find out what becomes of it. So I continue to wait.
Where Steemit DOES apply to the younger generations
Saying that Steemit doesn't appeal to the younger generations at all, Is unfair & untrue. The whole payout set up is beautiful; I can post my blog. And within 20 minutes I see results. Heck sometimes immediately. It's like checking a text on the phone, I can keep looking at it. Watching it go up or down.
The learning curve
When I first came to To Steemit, It was the most bizarre and confusing thing I had ever seen. I remember reading some blog posts about blockchains, Bitcoin, And having no idea what anything meant in any of the posts. All of these strange looking charts. WHERE AM I!?
But I kept seeing how excited @stellabelle Was about it. So I kept posting. It took me months to get a pretty good grip on what is going on.
The learning curve of Steemit had since improved, From when I joined in June 2016. It's so much easier to understand what things are If you've never heard of a blockchain before.
The fact that I see Steemit constantly changing and improving is causing me to want to hold my Steem Power even more.
The Future of Investing
I do a variety of investing, But I have a limited amount of resources in those investments. But I see the benefit of leaving your money somewhere to let it grow. But the impatience of Millenials is frightening. Why save when you can spend and enjoy your money RIGHT NOW!
How will investing work? Will we eventually accommodate this mindset? Or will Millenials be expected to somehow make more and more money to cover their retirement? And other larger expenses.
Why It's important to delay gratification.
Whether or not you aware, Many of your days conveniences have made you incredibly impatient. You don't have to go to Blockbuster to get a movie, Or heck even a Redbox. You can steam right on your Tv. You can order your groceries online; They are delivered to your doorstep. You don't even have to cook anymore, With companies like Freshly. Then send you prepared meals that you can put in the oven or Microwave.
While some of us still have a good amount of willpower, Everyday that we don't work our "willpower muscle" we lose a little bit, Increasing our impatience.
Delaying gratification can make your future self extremely happy When you are finally able to reap the benefits of a hard earned item, Or bank account. Often those better things also come from waiting.
Also, it's almost like you get extra enjoyment, Because you may have spent months or years waiting. You spend months or years EXCITED! As you watched your goal get closer. Then after you get it, you may feel a ton of gratitude, It will boost your self-esteem because you worked hard to achieve it. You get like 3x the enjoyment then just having whatever you want NOW! That you didn't even work that hard to earn.
If You were offered 1,000 dollars right now, Or 200,000 in 2 years, Which would you take?
I would take the 200,000 To help pass the time; I'd try to forget the agreement and continue living life normally. I feel like many people would take the 1,000 because they "need" the money now.
Why do you NEED THE MONEY RIGHT NOW!
What can you do instead to avoid burning through an incredible opportunity?
- Get Another job.
You could earn an extra 1,000 by getting another part time job. I mean it could take up to 8 weeks to receive the money. - You could write a book and spend months promoting it and collecting royalties.
There are thousands of things you could do. Even waiting "2 weeks" could be too long for some people. It's sad really. There are ALWAYS options out there; you just have to look for them.
What were you doing before?
I hate it when people get a new opportunity. And they claim they absolutely "need" it to survive.
What were you doing before?
You somehow figured out how to survive before. Why do you need to milk everything this opportunity has to offer, Right now. When the opportunity could grow into something so much better!?
Are their benefits to our impatience?
The fact that the world has sped up so much. Has allowed us to be more productive in ways. We can do more in one day then other people have been able to . But these are some of the prices we have to pay as a result of a crazy world like this. We may have more opportunities, But the opportunities May not be as fruitful.
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Great post on delayed gratification. It reminded me of John Stossel's episode about it, have you seen it?
Holy cow! i haven't seen this LOL. THanks for sharing. haha.
I haven't seen the episode. But I have heard of this marshmallow experiment. I LOVE IT! haha!
Ha yeah it is pretty good. It makes sense for sure!
It does :) I wonder what the percentage is these days of people who would eat the Marsh mellow.
Indeed. I feel I have taught my children well, however, I am the one who needs to remind myself of delayed gratification over and over.
love the post.. i agree this platform is a gift, i feel that as well. Im gonna ride it through with full faith.
nice post
Thank you!
Same here! If it goes down, My account goes down with it!
exactly.
Yes I agree completely!
I like this platform. And I do view it as an income stream.
And I like the changes. Being able for people to get their money out in 13 weeks may bring in more investors, which is needed.
And when I do power down, I can power down for just one week and get more money, and then immediately stop the power down.
I am with you. I think we could be very very wealthy in a year or two. Especially those of us that got in early.
I view the changes as forcing me to think of the future, because now Steem should be more rare, so I focused on getting as much as I could at the 10 cent to 20 cent range. So I still blog everyday, even small posts, to help collect as much steem as possible.
But I do think in a year or so there will be a group of us who could be Steemit millionaires.
True!! I'm trying to get as much as I can.
I hope there will be Steem Millionaires. Hehe.
Actually, there is a way to encourage the "willpower muscle" that's unique to Steemit:
The more you power up, the more influence you have over other people's rewards!
So...by investing long-term, you get the immediate benefit of becoming a kind of king- or queenmaker.
Interesting how Steemit sucks you into a longer-term orientation by ticking your vanity!
Well-written article. But I'm always suspicious of generational psychology. The character of the human race doesn't change so fast. But the economy does. It makes no sense to invest if you're paying back college loans, and it makes no sense to put money in a savings account of the interest is 0% or 1%. That's the world we, the old people, created. Young people invest a lot of time in their education and their resume, unlike the baby-boomers who could simply walk into a business and get a job.
so interesting - the prevailing assumption that if you hang in here long enough you'll make a ton of money. I haven't seen so many people sharing the same vision about anything else on line. Steemit certainly is unique
It is! hopefully it works out that way lol
Nice post @kaylinart! I'd like to see you and @craig-grant in a panel discussion on the topic of now ;-)
Up-voted/re-steemed.
Be Here Now - by George Harrsion
yes :)
That would be awesome!!!
That's the negative to the online/on-demand/social media/instant gratification society. Now now now. Nothing simmers, not much gets built with anticipation anymore.
True! Its sad really. Anticipation is such a good feeling!
Great post, I think many will identify with it.
It's like Steemit offers a new area for people to work on a niche and share their ideas. What a great concept!
The title of this post made me think it was CraigGrant for a second. Great writing as usual Kaylin. I just wanted to point out that the move to a shorter power-down period is much more practical and beneficial overall. We need not forget that steem is also a crypto currency and in this field there is a great great number of short term investors, or even long term investors who want the option of having some liquidity on a shorter time frame in case of an emergency or for whatever reason. It also serves people who want to move funds between accounts, something I am planning to do myself. For example you can save your steem in an account you do not use to login with on regular basis and it's safer since your key is hardly used. There is also more benefits to the shorter power-down that we discussed and can not recall all at this moment. Long term investors like ourselves are not forced to power-down in 13 weeks. You can disable that, or set a longer power-down schedule if you like. You can power down all/part of your vests or none.