Milestone post - 300 followers - A new community - Be Awesome

Now that I'm at 300 followers and I'm already having a hard time keeping up with everything, I want to step back and spend more time getting to know all the new friends I made here, make sure these new relationships don't just become part of a number. That's 300 real people with unique stories of their own. Maybe not all of them are paying much attention, I might not see eye to eye with everyone, and some of the follows might have been less than sincere but they're all real people like me and rather than seeing them as part of my own personal collection, I'd like to make you all a little more real to me by reaching out more.

What I've been busy with on steemit (good and bad)

• I made my first $100 post that later became a $200 post.
• on average trying to produce 2-3 quality English posts a week, 1 Japanese.
• did my very first interview with a great new user from Romania @guyfawkes4-20 . He's also interviewing @papa-pepper so I'm honored to be bunched in with the likes of him
• lots of seeking new friends through comments sections, chat, "new" and "hot".
• lots of time in steemit.chat and discord channels, especially whaleshares.
• worrying about HF19 . I'm still skeptical of the long term effects.
• 50 word short story contest, #minnowsupportproject, #the50 , #whaleshares, and then some....too much to balance

.

The contests, events, groups and projects all serve their purpose but they're best for people searching for their place on their platform. I feel like steemit was made with me in mind, I know exactly what I want to do here. But during the first month, I've been spreading myself really thin and falling into a few traps. I get a little overly focused on some of the drama and the mission to find more followers. Trying to stay true to the mission while also going through the grind has been draining me. I find myself babbling about nothing in the chats way to often, waiting for some way to turn the conversation towards something more meaningful. I do like to mess around but it gets excessive sometimes. Sometimes I spend hours searching for interesting posts to make heartfelt comments on so many peoples material, often forgetting who is who because it's just too much to keep track of. It's fun but it's too much. So I've decided...

Fuck the grind

I've already met so many amazing people, why let them get lost in a sea of followers in my desire to do well here. I write decent stuff. People are starting to read it. So what if a few posts don't get the attention they deserve. So what if It takes a little longer to get a great payout. Aren't the connections what I care about?

So I started thinking it'd be nice to always have a place where we could try to get closer without the distractions , the distractions for me being....

• constant barrage of new members questions about steemit
• people focused on how they can make money through honest or dishonest means
• thinking about upvotes, follows, and resteems
• insincerity
• spamming
• rambling, attempts at escaping boredom
• chats always revolving around steemit

It's really important to help new users and there's nothing wrong with trading or looking for way to do better on steemit. The projects and initiatives are awesome. some have a
Ready seen how I like rambling sometimes. But we have places for all that already. I want a place where we really go deep and get to know each other better, not as an afterthought but as our primary purpose. Sometimes just a casual intention to talk can do even more than a huge project or initiative.

So with that in mind I started the Be Awesome discord channel

"Be Awesome" is what you do to succeed her at steem. Everyone can bring their own "deep shit" to talk about and search for others to connect with. We can joke too but the main purpose is to really connect and help each other reach the best versions of ourselves. As the community grows we can open some sub-channels for a variety of topics, all spam free, bot free and boredom free.

I hope to talk more about the law of attraction and the things I write about here but whatever you are into, feel free to drop a line and see if anyone bites.

The chat is small now but it's growing. We aren't looking for as many members as possible, but rather to build a strong base of regular users who all invite their favorite people to join. I'll still be floating in and out of the other chat rooms but you can always find me in this new chat.

---

Read my first post introducing the chat :
Optimism at the End of the World 0 : BE AWESOME A new community based around a desire for deeper connection and shared values

Check out one of my other posts to see what I'm about :
Optimism at the End of the World 4 : The gift economy

The chat link (tell me if the link is broken)

So come over and Be Awesome

theTree