As the first quarter winds down, I find myself thinking — for the Nth time — that I'm just so relieved that the clown show known as the first quarter of 2026 is over and done with.
I look forward to the next quarter but I'm finding it harder and harder to actually get behind the belief that "it couldn't possibly get any worse." I don't even think about whether it's going to get better, I just think about the vain hope that maybe it won't get worse.
These days, even a neutral month feels like a win!
Maybe that sounds overly pessimistic, but I look around the world and I find very little to feel enthusiastic about. The greater world is at war and at the edge of crisis to an extent I have not seen in my lifetime; more and more people are falling into poverty and and with a world so uncertain how can things possibly get better?
Just to clarify, I'm not talking about Hive in this instance, I'm primarily talking about the world in general and the ongoing clown show out there.
As for Hive, I have reached the point where I treat this primarily as a diversion and a little bit of a game that I am playing for fun. It has long since ceased to be anything I consider in the context of making money or investing, although I might learn a thing or two from reading other people's posts here.
As I remarked in a comment to 
On the whole, I really just like the community here and hope that I can keep doing this for five, ten, or even more years... if this place is still going by then.
And if it so happens that along that timeline things have turned around and we suddenly have Hive that is much more valuable than it is today... well then I just consider that to be a bonus. But it is definitely not an expectation.
So, my expectation and goals for the 2nd quarter are not related to rewards, but to what I expect of myself in terms of publishing and engagement.
Feel free to leave a comment — this IS "social" media, after all!
As always, a 10% 
