Casting my first witness vote, the way I pick people to vote, why we need more people like @aggroed

I'm not the most active person on STEEM. I'm taking things slow. I only joined 46 days ago. One thing I got to realize that the witness are the backbone of STEEM. Unlike mining, DPoS allows us to vote for someone to take care of running the blockchain and sit back and relax. But I do understand that the 30 votes I can give are very valuable. I'm voting to decide the future of the platform. My SP is ranked at 16,019th place. I'm tiny. But lots of tiny flaws can bring down a skyscraper. So I'm going to be responsible.

What we need for the future

As a person who love and enjoy anime/movies/games one thing I know is the importance of an auteur. The vision is far more important than the technical. MCU has the biggest budgets, biggest promotions and some of the best talents in the industry. But are they the best movies? No. They are just mediocre. Same goes for COD, Battlefield and other yearly released games. The visionaries like, Oshii, Kubrick, Hideo Kojima are the ones who drive a medium forward. So I need to vote people with a great vision. We already have the tech.

We all want this site and platform to grow so that it's message can resonate across the internet and make an impact in your daily life. I value Peace, Abundance, and Liberty

For many on the Witness list they see this role as programming new apps and widgets that give new features to the product. It's a wonderful contribution. This platform wouldn't be where it is today without it. However, at it's current stage and size the Steemit platform has evolved enough so that one new feature or tweak to the platform isn't going to cause a mass migration here. We're not limited by the tools at hand, but by the number of people who know how to wield them and why they should.
This platform's message will spread by rallying our community around new people, showing them the ropes, and rewarding their success. It will grow by reaching out person by person to bring new members into the community.

This is what I believe in too. Good tech and good services aren't growing everywhere. But good communities are much rarer. There are other cryptos that can do fast transactions like Dash and PIVX (1.3 seconds). There are fee-less ones like NANO. As for privacy, nothing can get less private than STEEM. We are a community. We need the right vision for this community. Peace, Abundance, and Liberty sounds right to me.

The next stage of Steemit rests in the hands of educators, sales and marketing, and our community outreach. As a teacher, as an educator, as a communicator, as an activist, and as a passionate advocate for Steemit I know we can spread our message and our platform. I know if we do that then we can build a better world.

STEEM has already gone past the 1 billion USD mark. Now it's gone down a little. But STEEM performed really well compared to the rest. It's time to build community. Minnow Support Project is a great thing. There is also the podcast. http://mspwaves.com I checked out 1 episode and It was good. I appreciate all that work. It was the The Peace Academy Episode 20 and I loved the message. It was kind of the stuff that media needs to promote to build a better world.

Psychological studies have shown that those who choose to maintain a victim mentality are often selfish, manipulative, filled with anger, and have an irrational sense of entitlement.

We all have struggles, but we don't have to let our struggle become our identity.

Understanding that our own thoughts shape our realities, self-awareness, taking responsibility for our life choices, and letting go of the past are all ways to move away from a victim mentality mindset.

Amen! Amen! Amen! This is what that really solidified my vote. All creations and actions start with a thought. Only with good thinking comes a good future. It's like good food. You need to have good ingredients. Road to hell is paved with good intents because intents are not based on facts and truths. You can intend to make a good movie with a bad script and terrible cast and directors. But it won't work. I need a world without these emotional politics. I need more like Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell ad not things like the Hollywood garbage.

There's a saying, "Victims are violent"
Those exhibiting the most toxic form of victim mentality are often filled with unresolved anger that is usually directed toward others in the form of blaming, emotional manipulation emotional blackmail, or revenge/punishment.

It's not a lot of SP. But I think my vote will at least help to make a vote with less politics and more creativity.