The Negative Effect Of SteemIt On My Self-Esteem

Reading all those top notch posts here on SteemIt makes me wonder what I’m doing here...

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with words. My parents taught me how to read before my 5th birthday, and I started writing silly little poems when I was 6.

By the time I was 10 years old, I won loads of competitions with my short stories. Reading and writing was all I did. As a teenager I never went out partying with my friends. My books, a pen and some paper was all I needed to be perfectly happy (for as far as a teenager can be happy -lol)

Becoming a language teacher was the obvious choice. I enjoyed that job, I loved showing youngsters the magic of words. And althouh I didn’t have a lot of spare time, I was still writing stories and poems whenever I could.

Oh... those good old days, how I miss them. Back then, my writings had no other goal than to have fun. They served no other purpose than to feel the joy of turning letters into words, words into sentences, and sentences into stories.

After a couple of years I lost my job as a teacher. A chain of events made me end up in the world of internet marketing, where I spent the next 13 years of my life.

Instead of writing fictional stories and poems, I spent all that time writing salespages or mailing list articles to convince people to buy a product I hadn’t even seen myself.
I never managed to become better than average, mainly because there are so many rules you have to stick to if you want to manipulate people like that.

After all those years, I got tired of writing the same fake messages over and over again. All the fun of writing was gone.

Last spring, I put everything aside to start my own vegetable garden.

The marketeer in me thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I could make this hobby profitable by starting a blog. The writer in me completely agreed.

I really enjoyed writing the first couple of articles. They were spontanious and although I had become a little rusty, they weren’t even that bad. But then the pressure took away all the fun again. If you want to build up a large follower base, you need to be consistent and write at least 1 or 2 articles a week. Soon, the writing started to feel like a job, because I had to fulfill expectations and all the spontaneity was gone. This had a huge effect on the quality of my articles...

And now, ... now I’m here on SteemIt, where the game is on.

99% of the people on this platform aren’t writing just for fun. Earning money is the big goal here. And I must confess I’m part of that 99%.

After all those years, I simply don’t remember how it feels like to write spontaniously - let alone find that state of mind again.

And it shows...
I’m aware of the fact that I’m not 10 years old anymore, when I was far ahead of my classmates. This is the real world, and in the real world, I’m only a mediocre writer without any specific expertise.

When I scroll through posts here on SteemIt, I see so many people write high-quality, in-depth articles that I often wonder what I’m doing here.

I’m such a person who knows a little of many things, but there is nothing I’m really good at. Here on SteemIt, lots of people are real experts. Cryptocurrencies, food, nature, programming, making videos ... just to name a few.

Reading those top notch articles often makes me feel dumb and completely out-of-place. When I read my own articles it hurts to see how they lack the quality I want them to have. And how little love for writing they show.

There’s only one that comes straight from the heart.
I wrote
From The Deep, Dark Dungeons Of My Soul. I Stepped Back Into The Light on January 1st, just before I went to sleep after a wild party with my friends. I actually never meant to post this on SteemIt, it was written just because I had the need to express how I felt at that particular time. I didn’t even plan to show it to my friends, but my girlfriend made me.

I’m not saying it’s that good, only that it’s different from everything else I posted on here. It took me 5 minutes to write, and I truely enjoyed writing every single word.

I’m not sure I can keep on doing this SteemIt thing, since it would be pretty stupid to stay at a place where you are so intimidated by other people’s qualities that you start questioning your own.

But for now, I’ll be sticking around. Mainly because this very article gave me a little taste of how I enjoy writing an article just for fun. As I’m writing it, I know I’ll be posting it. And you know what? I know its not high-quality, and I don’t care. If no one reads it or if it gets no upvotes at all, I could perfectly live with it.
Why? Because I finally wrote an article without overthinking it. After all those years, I’m having fun writing something. I forgot how good it feels to turn words into sentences, and to turn sentences into a story...

Who knows, maybe I will be able to find my ‘mojo’ again.. :-)

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No ‘Follow me’ or resteem requests, no click baits or article promotions to end with. Only a satisfied smile and big thank you if you made it all the way down here!