WHY AM I STILL HERE? WHY I AM STILL HERE!

I remember the first few days after registering,

the thoughts that were all going through my mind, from thinking to myself “Man I remember some of my mates telling me about Bitcoin back many years ago, just when it all started out and me thinking back then, “Nahhhh, no way is the Big Brother going to allow anything of the sort” to the first days here on Steemit, when I was reading all sorts of posts about Crypto currencies and the figures being slapped around all over various posts!

Kind of felt like a silly duffer! But such is life, you win some, you lose some, missed that train and in a way it made me pretty certain that I don’t want to miss this one!

So there I was, just reading posts, surfing all over the portal and I decided to start posting.

OMG, what do I do? I have never been a “Blogger” before, sure I’ve been on the Fbook and Twitter that somehow seemed to become rather boring and something that just annoyed me as I didn’t see any challenge there, but I had never actually kept a diary or anything of the sort.

So for the first month, I just mucked around, posted bits and pieces that kind of told a bit of a story about me, maybe more so than words can describe, as the old saying goes “a picture says a 1000 words” so too does a video!. Shared a lot of things that put a smile on my face, from funny beer ads to things from back in the day! I watched my wife go all crazy with her “Tweeting”, as if I hadn’t heard enough about it while she was on Twitter. Figured I could do things here as I did them there, just go all out, work the “big numbers game” as far as setting up a profile and that goes.

Some of the posts that have kind of stuck in my mind from that time frame and that influenced me in some ways were from all sorts of different people, from @stephenkendal with him telling us to pop out the bubbly, over half a million things actions here on Steemit, man did that just blow my mind away, my local bank here doesn’t get that many transactions “WOW” was the expression that went through my mind, then there was @stellabelle whose words I vividly remember about this here being a “gift economy”, still can’t explain it to people properly, as they always seem to be stuck in the ‘everyday real life greedyness economy’, but I have quoted her many a time on that, then the one image that has really stuck in my head is the following by @hilarski

Like one of those songs that just keeps on replaying in ones mind, talk about an inspiration, this picture is pretty much engraved in my memory! The one that stuck in my mind and that took me back in time was @dollarvigilante with his post on how the US Government has started its hunt on all the people with Bitcoin, man it was like “I knew it, no way would they let this work”, but after typing in @ + his user name 101 times since then and reading his articles regularly I see that it was the fear of the Big Brother thing again, my bad. Another person whom I have been reading regularly, trying to figure things out here and not have a dumbfounded look on my face on the topics at hand is @calaber24p , again one of the first people that I think I understand and when not I just use the tactic of ‘Google is my friend’.

GUESS WHO!

Then there are the two people from back then who I just can never forget, as they are always in the hot and trending categories, they are @jerrybanfield, who’s one piece of advice from back then stuck in my head, and that was that splitting the profits 50/50 between SP and SBD is more profitable, didn’t understand the maths behind it, but I figured he knew what he was talking about, and then @sweetsssj with her travel stories and diary like posts about her trips and experiences, very refreshing and delightful posts to read, I can understand why a lot of people like to read these.
A link to her header photo:

ALL of these people and the posts that I mentioned for some reason in my first month here I remember. Maybe I’m a little old fashioned when it comes to some things, but I have to admit that each and every person is unique as an individual and I just accept everyone the way they are.....

Then a fellow Australian got in touch with me, @sirknight. I commented on a post with a little story of what happened some time in my past and he suggested that I should turn that into a post.

I thought to myself...... “Hmmmmmm I guess this guy knows what he is talking about.....”, I don’t know, but the old chip of “do this when I say do that” kicked in and I did that as he told me to do that. OK, cool, I thought that I had started figuring things out here..... ahaaaa yeah right!

From this point onwards things started to change, @sirknight introduced me to @TeamAustralia , to one of the Witnesses here @ausbitbank , I started talking to them, asking question and trying to figure out how this all worked now, as up to this point I thought everyone here was “alone”. Man was I wrong!

On the 4th of July, my Mrs @sylviamiller , my son @chrismiller and myself sat down and Skyped us a meeting about all this. I said to them “people, this is serious, there is not just money to be made here, but we can seriously along side other people here make a difference, we can make money, do something useful and enjoy doing it.....”

That was pretty much the gist of what I was saying and I left a pretty good impression as the “Tweeting” stopped, Chris sat back and started surfing the posts and reading more so than posting and I thought that “I knew it all” (well not really, but I did feel important, for a day or so).

Since then, I have learned many a thing, I don’t claim to know it all, but I can without a doubt say that I do know more now than I did ever before. Again that might be chicken feed in comparison to most of the people here on Steemit, but guess what?
It wasn’t just the money aspect that has got me addicted, it is all the people whose posts I read, not just the posts and people I mentioned here, they are the ones that at the beginning wrote somethings that kind of are still here in that old Commodore 64 that is on my shoulders, but also everyone who is trying to make a real difference here!

Some of the people here are so determined to make Steemit the "IN" thing among social networks, that all that positive energy has influenced me too...... how can it not, positive thinking and actions just make everyone in the vicinity more postive.

GOOD VIBES!

So it was at the end of the day PEOPLE, PEOPLE who are the reason why I stuck around, the fact that I’m dealing with people and not machines, people and not just a bank teller or computer. PEOPLE who are in their individual ways being PEOPLE.

OK, the money aspect is a good motivation tool, but without people what would it all be worth!

SO THERE IT IS...... WHY I AM STILL HERE..... no doubt about it, would have gone even more crazy than ever, lost the plot and probably gone, if it was all about the money and nothing else!