Thankfulness
I always try to be grateful, regardless of the circumstances. From my youth I remember two 'life lessons' regarding being grateful. Off course these 'lessons' weren't thought from a textbook and rather by setting an example for me and thus I would like to first say thanks to my mother and grandfather for teaching me them.
When I was a kid my grandparents traveled twice a year to Lourdes, a place of pelgrimage, for two weeks to help out other pelgrims. They did this on their own expenses and never expected anything in return. They were very religious but even so in our culture it is not that obvious. I was too young or I can't remember but they never really explained why they did this. From the context however I remember it as a very unselfish act with the only motivation that they themselves had everything they needed and were grateful for it.
The second lesson is from my mother. She's not as religious as my grand parents, but still religious. She tried to pass that on but failed. My brain is not made for religion, but that doesn't mean that effort was in vain. I got teached many lessons about life through it. One thing I'll never forget is that one should not say prayers to ask for something, that's a greedy intention, one should say prayers to thank for something. Even today, when we're traveling together and we pass a church we like to lit a candle. To me it is just a candle and a moment of reflection, I'm not thanking god, I know she is, but I'm still grateful.
That is to say that I consider thankfulness important. I'm no saint, I can't say that I'm always good at it, or that this is always obvious in life.
My connection to Utopian
At the very beginning, in what feels ages ago, others and I helped 
Hive account@elear to start up Utopian. It was nothing like it is today but the Utopian spirit was exactly the same. I was one of the very first mods helping out. When I look back at it I remember that period as an interesting fun time, I got to learn quite some new things and people, connections that still remain today. For no reason in particular I slowly quit moderating. Things were evolving rapidly and I didn't have the time to follow up. Slowly I realized there were other people doing a better job and I noticed I was starting to make mistakes because of the lack of commitment. One day I just had to throw the towel and give up. At around that same time SteemMakers was slowly starting so my attention was moving away even further. To me nurturing my own baby was more fun than moderating. I never really gave up on Utopian, SteemMakers development is opensource and gained a lot of support by Utopian.
Thank you Utopian part 1
To be honest I don't know if SteemMakers would be where it is now without Utopian. Well, in fact I know, not where it is now or maybe it wouldn't have continued to exist at all. I know for sure that it would have been harder to stay motivated working on it. It's not easy to get something started. Maybe I would have shifted back to our local FabLab and collaborate with the established community there, continue doing what I was doing before. But not only I have been supported through Utopian. Our 'home' graphic designer, 
Hive account@podanrj, has his contributions to us and others supported by Utopian. Without his help our graphics wouldn't look nearly as finished. And the same goes for others. We have had 
Hive account@pbock, 
Hive account@frankremmy and 
Hive account@drmake helping out with content writing being supported by Utopian. All of that has helped us grow together. Thank you 
Hive account@utopian-io.
Thank you Utopian part 2
A couple of days ago I was contacted by Utopian with the question if they can follow our trail. I was perplexed. We're such a small fish in this vast ocean and super rock star Hive account@utopian-io is asking to follow our trail? Off course! We discussed the best way to move forward and to be honest the initial proposal was even more generous than what came out in the end. I have the feeling 
Hive account@steemmakers was not ready to live up to the first proposal because we don't have a scoring system in place yet. But we are working on that, so hopefully soon. To put it short the Utopian team chose 
Hive account@steemstem and Hive account@steemmakers to start their innovation trail. I have no idea on what basis they chose our initiative. Is it because of our history, because of a similar way of looking at the steem blockchain, because of our unselfish approach, because of... I have no idea and as the saying goes: don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
This generous gift means a lot for Hive account@steemmakers. It's a recognition of what we have been doing and it allows us to pursue our goal of supporting makers and DIYers on the blockchain even more. Hive account@utopian-io will trail Hive account@steemmakers with a 5% vote. At current market prices and with this massive support from Hive account@utopian-io we can now support curated articles with close to 30 SBD. Thank you Hive account@utopian-io.
Thank you SteemMakers
Our community has slowly grown for an idea I had while being in the FabLab, to having discussions about the idea, to writing a pseudo whitepaper that was (partially reviewed by 
Hive account@techslut), to starting a site, to getting help from Hive account@pbock, Hive account@drmake, and others with curation and content. Along the way there were bits here and there that have been worked on by many others. I'm thinking of 
Hive account@plushzilla especially for the support and guidance at the beginning. And of course, last but certainly not least all the great artwork by Hive account@podanrj. Then there is a vast group of different people that I can't all call by name because it would be too much. People that have shared support, opinions, ideas, recommendations, ... and all other SteemMakers in general. Thank you all!
Final note
I wrote this post personally but I think I speak for every SteemMakers core member and any SteemMaker in general. The amount of enthusiasm in our Discord just peaked.
Thank you Utopian, thank you Hive account@elear, thank you Utopian delegators and thank you to all SteemMakers!
Image design by Hive account@podanrj
