@clayford08, I pulled one sentence out of your post that I feel summarizes your point: "Get out there and connect with like-minded people and upvote quality content!"

JFK was attributed to saying "A rising tide lifts all boats." Steemit is a community, not a collection of non-connected individuals. We really need other people, and it make sense to connect with like-minded people. And when those people provide us value, they deserve our upvote.