First year on steemit
Last year I knew nothing about steemit prior to about June when my wife started talking about it, and her friend talked her into joining. It was something she thought I would enjoy, and she was right. I have enjoyed most of my time on steemit. So the end of July, the last day, my account was approved at 17:56 Alaska Time, which put it at 1:56 UTC time on the first of August.
This picture was taken on 11/22/2016: My Chihuahua Shasta
She wanted to be tucked in, she knew life for us was going to be changing, so she was pretty clingy during this week. I think dogs and pets in general know when things are changing. I did not know how much they were going to change and how different things were going to be in the coming spring of 2017. Enough of the sad.
It has been a pretty wonderful year on steemit. I actually feel that I have accomplished something, and that I have had fun, and been pretty well entertained by the people of steemit. I love to read, and well most blogs and post need comments, so I found that I liked to comment very early on. There is a lot of stories on steemit free to read by very good authors, I think most of my first four months on steemit was spent reading some of those stories. I had found a few people very early on that I enjoyed following, a person that shared music, a person that shared personal type stories, and a person that shared some awesome artwork.
Music: 
Personal type stories: 
Awesome Artwork: 
There are people, like you, that are new to steemit, check out their blogs/post look around, they are the future along with you, of the backbone of steemit. These are just the first three that really super caught my eye all for different reasons, and posting type/styles. There really is something for every taste out there in steemit.
The Figures
Numbers, we are all fascinated by the numbers, why am I so small, why does he/she have more SP than me, what am I doing wrong. It mostly comes down to work, and networking. You can have the most beautifully formatted post all the right pictures, but if you have never left a comment, left a vote, replied to someone that commented on a previous post of yours, if you do not interact, you are not going to go very far on steemit.
My numbers, and by all means look at the three people mentioned above, they got to where they are by hard work, me I got to where I am by playing on steemit, and by enjoying myself on steemit.
Not super impressive numbers for being here one year, but not bad for just pretty much enjoying myself and playing on steemit.
I could say it has all been roses and vanilla ice cream for all my time on steemit, but there have been ups and downs, and downvotes and muted people. People will be people, and some will be less than people on steemit. There is the good, the bad, and the indifferent people on steemit. Indifferent can lead to some pretty ugly situations, so please keep that in mind, when you think it wasn't me that got slammed. Or they are not hurting me. Or I haven't been down voted so why should I care who he downvotes. One day it may be someone else being indifferent when you need someone to care.
Get to know people
Are you new to steemit, or just struggling on steemit. The best piece of advice I can give is to find a group, a small community, a few people that seem to like what you like. Do you see someone commenting on the same post you comment on? Check out their post and their feed, see if they belong to a small community or to a group, maybe strike up a conversation and start forming a small group of your own, you never know what will happen until you ask.
On Sundays I put out a post for 
Steemit is a social media type system, get to know a few people, learn about discord chat and steemit chat, take advantage of them. Most of the people are here doing and wondering the same thing as you, "am I doing it right?", "Why am I not growing?", "Why am I being flagged?", "how do I do this...?". Everyone has those questions at one time or another, your network will be able to help when you need them, but only if you help them when they need help, networking is a two way thing, like communication, talk, listen, respond. Let the other person do the same.
I did not get here alone, I did not survive on steemit alone, I had help. There are a lot of people that have helped me along the way on my journey, and I appreciate each and everyone of them.
Remaining numbers so I have them for next year comparison: 261 posts | 9,248 comments - & - 8,957 votes | 11,175 received
@dustsweeper