Why I Needed A Steemit Break

We've all read what the Dolphins and Whales suggest... and they tell us over and over again: "post at least once a day," "post quality content," "post twice, or three times a day if you can." It sounds great and it sounds easy, but let's be honest, quality content sometimes takes an hour, or two hours to compose. Then after taking part of my already full day, it may get a few cents without upvote buying. And even when they say upvote buying will get you double, once it is broke down and paid out, you are lucky if you break even.

My work schedule changes over the summer and I am working ten hour days, with almost a two hour commute, so literally on the days I work I rush home hoping to relax for a couple hours before bed. One of the biggest reasons I had to take a break too is because I had to get continuing education hours to renew my counseling license. So, instead of spending countless hours on Steemit, I was spending a lot of hours towards making sure I could renew my license for my career.

Not to beat a dead horse, but after I took some time off of Steemit, I started to think about how much time I was losing. Don't get me wrong, I love to write. However, with all of my education in psychology, I've learned if you put an extrinsic reward on an intrinsic passion for something, it can take away your love and desire to do a task that would normally have brought you joy. In a way, that is what was happening. Even when I reminded myself that I could just write daily because I loved it... seeing the monetary value on my posts changed how I felt about what I was doing.

Don't get me wrong, I have been lucky that I've gained a huge following in such a short time. I've had bloggers choose my posts to be featured on their page because they felt like my posts were quality content. Which I am grateful and proud of my content. However, it doesn't change the fact that there are people out there that write total bulls**t and make $$$ bank on it because they are a "whale." And, really we would all love for our posts to make that same amount because an extrinsic reward has been put on blogging.

However, in my time off Steemit, 15 days exactly... I've lived. And it felt amazing! Besides completing 40 hours of continuing education hours, I've taken time for myself, my husband, my friends, and my family. I went to the hair salon and got a new hairdo:

I tried working evening shifts at work and decided I hated it. I've binged on Netflix and became addicted to Vampire Diaries. I've went shopping and tried on clothes I would not normally buy for myself just to step out the box:

My husband and I have taken walks around our property and spent time with his family. Just today we had a cookout and had a chance to eat dinner with them. On one of our walks, I saw this very brave bunny that stayed awhile and didn't budge till we got very close to it:

I went and hung out with one of my friends and celebrated with her kids that it was their last day of school by bringing them pizza. I went to a friends birthday party. I even took time to hang out with my best friend and try to help her figure out some things at the library:

This list could go on... so I'm going to stop here and just say that I don't plan on quitting Steemit, but I do plan on taking more time to just live. In reality, we all should. I know that many of you are just like me, and you have jobs and families that you must maintain. Most of you, just like myself, cannot throw up a crap post and make hundreds of dollars on each one of them because we didn't find a way to weasel the system. So, I urge you to take time for yourself, and for your families and friends. We only live one life, and trying to find a get rich scheme shouldn't be the focus of it. ;)