The short answer is...

YES!

I have been in an inner battle between right and wrong concerning upvoting behaviour. A lot of questions arise when I struggle with myself, such as:

1. Is it wrong to self-upvote?

   I don't know. I do it. I like what I post, and I figure that I'm usually one of the only ones that upvote anything I write, so yeah, I'm guilty of that. I also leased some SP so that I could upvote myself and others and get $.03 a pop, hopefully recovering my investment of 8.381 Steem that I got from my introduction post. This was all done on advice from others. I didn't even know that you could do that at the time. I even upvote some comments.

2. Would I do it if my upvotes were worth hundreds of dollars?

   I don't think I would. I'm just not that greedy. If my upvotes are worth that much, I figure I don't need more. Unless maybe I had just spent a bunch of money to lease thousands of SP for a few weeks and needed to pay back the loan shark. The problem with that scenario is that I am not much of a gambler anymore. I would never risk the little money I have on a risk like that. Not after that one night in Reno in my twenties. Fucking one-armed bandits.
   

3. Is it wrong to upvote friends?

   I don't think so. I like what my friends have to say, generally. I have upvoted some things that I don't agree with (cough) @erebus (cough) because I appreciate the discussion and welcome any debate as it may open my eyes to something I hadn't seen before. Also, if I respect the poster, why shouldn't I send my pennies their way? I'm an atheist, but I always upvote my buddy's @fromthebeginning bible posts, because he's a good person and I want him to know I support him, even though I can't imagine the benefit of having the entire Bible on Steemit. I figure that anyone interested already has a bible, but he has been really into it lately, so have at it.
   

4. Should I upvote my other account @granolalight ?

   I think I should, even though it's cheesy. It's not much, but our last post has only got $.05 so far and more than half of that was from me and my leased SP. I imagine that it's pretty boring shit to most people, but I did spend an hour or so writing it and looking through the computer for old photos, so I wanted the three pennies for my effort. Fucking sue me.
   

5. Is it wrong to lease SP?

   No, I don't think so. In all honesty, it's the only reason I will be here for at least eight weeks. I had these big dreams of getting two bucks a post and maybe having enough to buy a Range Road firewood processor in a few years when we were ready to start working our own land. I found out pretty quick that that wasn't happening without me figuring out ways to manipulate the system.
   

6. Is it wrong to manipulate the system?

   Yes. In my mind it is wrong. This is what leads me to this inner battle. That's why I can't bring myself to use all of the upvotes on myself. That's why I am trying to figure out how to help @friendsofgondor with their fight. My problem is always thinking that their fight is also against me and what I'm doing, even though I didn't start out on that path. Sometimes we get caught up in things, like whale wars, etc... That shit really matters here, and because this is a part of life, I suppose it matters everywhere. haejin and ranch0relax0 are just Steemit's version of Trump and whoever the fuck is feeding that whale.
   

7. Should I just stick it out until my leased SP is done and donate whatever I have accumulated to some deserving minnow, or try to make a go of this the honest way?

   I really don't know. I feel disheartened that I put myself in this position just for wanting shit. I love to write, but honestly, I would be better off going out and shovelling a few driveways and pocketing $30 to invest in the processor when I save up enough. Do that 150 times and it would be paid for, but there is no discovery in that. The reason I love writing is that I can truly reflect and ask myself questions that I don't know the answers to. Maybe I'll never know, but it makes me think about it. This post went from something I hadn't really thought out to whatever this is and now it will give me even more ammo to keep myself awake at night. I woke up from a dream with @berniesanders donkey pic in it. WTF?

   Anyhow, I'm going to cuddle in with my old lady and try to forget all this shit. Wish me luck.

   Oh, I almost forgot to put pics in this post. Here you go. These are from our honeymoon.