My VP has finally reached 100% since my first day here on Steemit. I’ve been hovering around 60-70% VP for many months, and finally decided to put a stop to it all. That meant no upvoting the many awesome posts out there, no more upvoting comments, and pausing Steemauto.

Today on May 15th, I have finally reached 100% VP again since my start in January. This is quite an accomplishment considering I am quite trigger happy with that upvote click.

My Life in a Nutshell

As you can tell, I haven’t been active so much on Steemit lately. Real life is busy for me. It is challenging to find time to write, comment, or be active on Steemit when there are real world responsibilities.

Steemit from a User’s Perspective

Is Posting Every Day the Path to Success?

So I read a lot of Steemians offering advices on how to succeed here on this platform. One of the advices is to post every day. I honestly cannot adhere to this advice and must not be on the path to success!

Being a non-blogger to begin with, I don’t understand how one has so many projects, thoughts, and opinions to share and blog about. Is Steemit their full-time job? Do they not have a family or children? Are they exceptional writers? Is every one of their content deemed quality?

I know everyone is talented in their individual ways. For me, I am not a talented writer. I am definitely not a blogger. I can’t share my awesome food recipes because I really do hate cooking. I can’t share my DIY projects because goodness, I can never get any one of those projects completed. I definitely will not share personal information on DTube because I’m too private a person. I have my FB account set on the most private of private of settings!

So what do I have to offer when it comes to blogging here on Steemit? My semi-talented writing skills and charming personality, of course! That is, when I am inspired enough to write. Or simply when I have time. Most days, I find myself lacking in both inspiration and time.

Here is what I refuse to post on my blog

I realize that I have community support on here. I refuse to post memes, giphys or one-picture photography posts (without any writing deemed of substance) for contest entries simply because it’s not fair to receive the support from these individuals. If I want to post a photography post to enter a contest or showcase what new skills I am learning with my camera, I will simply do so on my personal account. I don’t receive any support there so no guilty conscience.

Does this mean I will lose an audience? Probably.

It is important to find balance with the real and Steemit world. To be honest, I feel it’s a sacrifice of one aspect in life in order to achieve another aspect. Most days, I sneak in Steemit time after everyone is asleep, but that means sleep deprivation and going to work the next day feeling like a zombie.

So how does one reach that balance? For me, it is definitely not with writing a post a day. I’m simply not inspired enough most days to put out a single word on here. If I want to write a post, that means not commenting or replying back to others. If I want to dedicate more time to Steemit, that means less family time and definitely having undereye circles the next day.

Steemit from an Investor’s Perspective

I am both a user and investor on this platform. Small investor since I found out about Steemit in December, 2017 when the value of STEEM was trending between $3-5 USD. More than half of my accumulated SP (not counting delegations) is from purchasing STEEM and investing in this platform.

As an investor, I would like to see a positive ROI. That is how it works, right?

I’ve spent many months on here supporting and encouraging engagement and community growth. I had been consistent in the top ranking of Asher’s Engagement and Excellence League. Here was my last time being in the top 11th ranking a month ago before life got extremely busy. As you can see, I barely made in into the top 11th ranking. Right now, I’m trending in the top 25th ranking for engagement.

I happily support #newbieresteemday, an initiative which I am a team member. We support newbies on this platform with the @newbieresteemday account, and all the members do so voluntarily. We provide guidance, advices, and positive encouragement. There are no monetary or rewarding incentives for our team members. We contribute time, SBD, and SP delegations because we realize there is a need to support newbies on this platform. Who else will go through the trouble?

I follow the @newbieresteemday curation trail with Steemauto. I also show very minuscule support to the @friendsofgondor curation trail with Steemauto.

ROI as an Investor in Community Growth?

As an investor, there is no ROI. Well, not materialistic ROI. I’ve met many great individuals in the community and made friendships that I consider real, even though we are on an imaginary cryptocurrency platform.

So how am I profiting since I don’t post every day? I’m actually not.

I’ve been on here for 147 days. Out of those days, majority of them were spent upvoting contents written by newbies or rewarding comments. There is very minimal curation rewards earned when it comes to helping newbies. I earned around 2.02 Curation SP in this time period.

In the last two or three weeks, I decided to follow a whale circle-jerking unicorn & dreams curation trail. The wonderful Steemian did some homework and decided to follow some individuals with circle-jerk voting or last minute upvoting patterns from alt-accounts. These individuals are now purged from my steemworld outgoing votes since I paused steemauto, in case you’re wondering.

I’m just going off the numbers above since I don’t have time to do in-depth research, but the sad truth is, I made more in Curation SP with the circle-voting activities in the last 30 days than I did by supporting newbies and comments.

In 117 days of supporting newbies and comments: 2.02 Curation SP earned.

In 30 days of supporting circle-jerk and greedy activities: 3.63 Curation SP earned.

Looking at it from an investor’s perspective, which way should I lean?

Conclusion

Here is my fabulous blog post of the day. You may not see many posts from me because real life is busy. I will start my Steemauto again. I will continue to support newbies and give out my comment rewards. As for the circle-voting activities, it is extremely disheartening to see that I would earn more in curation rewards by supporting these individuals than by supporting the quality content that should be on trending. Or by showing support to individuals that may not write quality posts, but are just as smart, witty, caring, and with some of the most beautiful hearts I’ve seen on this platform.

My support will continue to go to these individuals, but it is extremely sad that Steemit Inc. does not see that they need to start showing community support. If investors see all the rewards coming from curating circle-jerk voting activities and passive SP delegation, then why should they feel a need to look elsewhere on this platform?

Image Sources:
Beeyou image by@seaslim
Newbieresteemday giphy by@amariespeaks
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Snippets from steemworld, and Asher's Curation League post (abh12345)