Ok, @steemit. For anyone brand new- it is a challenge to know which actions are frowned upon and which actions are clever. The whole thing is a sort of confusing world of excitement. I still consider myself fairly new to this #steem world, and anyone who reads my posts knows that one of my common themes is my lack of awareness when it comes to the unspoken rules of etiquette. Let's just say I have made a few embarrassing choices in the ways of my past steemit posts.
See for yourself and you will discover my faux pas tendencies of the recent past.

To the point.

Recently A steemian of revered delight by the name of @CarlGnash sent me some advice in a comment in this past post;
https://steemit.com/success/@lorilikes/did-i-post-something-spammy-am-i-no-longer-eligible-for-the-cool-club-scratchin-my-head-over-here
That day I decided to try his advice which was something like "I personally think self-voting is the fast road to exactly nowhere" and he mentioned the legendary @stellabelle who I have since grown quite fond of, as predicted and it is more than her inventive nature which brought to the world the #slothicorn and for that matter- here is a link to my entry into her slothicorn contest. https://steemit.com/slothicorn/@lorilikes/slothicorn-entry-how-do-i-love-thee

Notice the darling little spaceship made out of the ethereum symbol, the bitcoin moon and most lovely the steemit logo is actual steam rising from the moon. Haha !
Anyway. Back to the topic of What was I going on about? Oh right .See I told you that Stellabelle has a spell on me. I could write a book about her. As a matter of fact..

Woops! Back to the topic! Back to the Selfless thing.

So I was thinking about how it would be to refrain from voting for myself. I was my own biggest fan... so it would be sort of hard to break this habit. Plus, I had just leased a delegation of steempower through one of the many services, before I knew I would be conducting the experiment. I guess this is also a topic of controversy but ya know what? You can never make everyone approve of your every step. So whatever.

The delegation arrived in my account just at the same time as Mr. Gnash pointed out the whole "gift economY" thing. I was dumbfounded and a little embarassed because I didnt understand that each day you get an allottment of votes and the first votes count more heavily than the last. I was upvoting my own stuff- to the delight of nobody- not even myself because I did not ( and still do not ) understand the 30 minute rule. Enlighten me someone.

Knowing that the really neat people who have done very well tend to GIVE all their daily upvotes to other who they feel are deserving of the rewards made my self upvoting feel super lame. It is not lame, but it may not be the wise choice in the long run. Here is why.

Aside from the sheer coolness it appears that one has when they have the restraint to not pay them selves for talking, something else begins to happen.

At first I was antsy, and uncomfortable. I still was not seeing any action for my hard work on posts, at least not much, and I was feeling whiny and disenchanted by it all.

My disenchantment and boredom led to an amazing thing...

I actually began to read peoples posts. Wow.

It is amazing that I had spent so much time here, with all of you and hardly knew how many of you had incredible content to sift through and talk about. I began to explore PEOPLE. I just got the chills. Twice.

You are all PEOPLE. Not little paychecks. Cool people!

When I began to scroll through posts and read the various philosphies I saw all types of humanity. Those who are intelligent beyond my own comprehension. Those with talents in dance, and music. Those who are simply charismatic in their social presence.

I began to upvote lots. I began to comment on the posts I liked or felt I had something to connect on.

Out of nowhere (it seems) I began to connect on a new, more heartfelt level with steemians.
It was as if a light switched on. The more I observe and absorb, the more I grow my own base of real regular readers too. The people I am connecting with are genuine, and engaging and incredible.

I will always treat well those who actively participate in cool conversations across this platform- when I have SP available to me.

Upvoting with substantial #steempower is fun and when you are boycotting your own self votes, it is truly a perfect recipe for creating a quality experience. I found brand new people who worked on genuine posts and rewarded them with postive comments and 100 percent upvotes because it feels good to get that little boost even if it is the only one because it keeps the spirit up. It keeps us all swimming in the pond. It gives quality content a chance to be seen. We deserve to see the good stuff! This helps! What a beautiful way to decentralize content distribution. I wish the mainstream media outlets would take a lesson from steemit. I really do.

I understand why some people operate on this "selfless" level - although it is not completely selfless because good curation generates profits too, and I am only at the start of my understanding of it.

I have come to the conclusion that it makes sense to #upvote others and your actions will benefit the community and you will reap the rewards of permanent friendships, rewards that come back around in the form of upvotes when you post, and the chance to be inspired by others who feel just like you do sometimes. While only upvoting others I have had a better experience in the last 2 weeks ( approximately) then I had since I started here.

cheers, applause, gold stars

Anyway, I wanted to share with my friends, all who are fairly new to my daily routine the results and final thoughts.

I do recommend you try it- but in the end, it is a matter of preference and not more.

Delegation, like the magic gifts of the fairy godmother, will expire tomorrow I think... and I will be sad to see it dwindle but I had so much fun dousing you all with my new appreciation and spoiling you with upvotes when I saw good, quality content - and I love this platform more and more.

Thanks!
xoxoxoxoxox
@thecryptodrive In case you see this : Thank you so much. Lets do it again~ I love it!