It might not seem like it's my place to ask you if you've helped a minnow today, but honestly I'm not trying to get an answer for myself, as a matter of fact, its not even that important that I know the answer. The question, or more accurately, the reflection is meant for you, and you alone.

Can you remember your first day on Steemit? Was it confusing? Was it Frustrating?

   It was for me, I was actually in the verge of quitting on my third day, when after pouring my heart and soul into what I thought was my best writing ever, I saw only 0.02 pending payout and two views. In my head, I was convinced I was tricked into coming here by the funny man with the hat(if you don't know who that is, you will soon) there was simply no way my post was that bad.

The Human Ego is a finicky thing...

   How are we supposed to disconnect those numbers on the paying payout to our sense of self worth? It's not simple to do, its simple to say, not simple to feel. If you have not experienced this yourself, I'm sure you've seen a minnow complaining about the lack of interaction, but the truth is that they simply don't know how Steemit works, they might not know the ropes.

   I vividly remember thinking:

Well this is some kind of male bovine excrement. How is anyone supposed to read what I just wrote, I'm on no ones feed!!! The system is rigged, this is the DNC fiasco all over again!!! What does a guy have to do to catch a break? Another account on another website, that I won’t use ever again…. Freaking great….

How did we get here?

   I have no idea how you landed on Steemit, but I had been searching for months for a way to make some income online, aside for maybe becoming a webcam girl (which I obviously would suck at pretty badly) I probably tried everything and only got frustrated at every turn, don’t try the swagbucks thing, trust me, its rigged.

   But I remember the day I decided to join Steemit, I’m on the 256th video of different ways to make some money online when a well known Steemian character with a funky hat (you know who I’m talking about… NO? You don’t? Oh… you will soon I promise) starts smiling and talking about this magical world of Steemit and how he is making all this money blogging and what not.

   After my skeptic side was satisfied (saw ten more videos easily) I decided, ok… I’m going to give this thing a go, if it doesn’t work, I’ll just put the Hat guy on my blacklist of online bullcrapers.

   So there I’am, I got my brand new account, it still smells like new internets and I have no freaking clue what to do. In my defense four months (almost) is a lot of time on Steem, the website was completely different back then, and many features we now take for granted only existed on a pizza stained napkin of some developers desk as an idea.

   And that was a problem… I almost quit, I almost said fudge this Sunday, and it was only stupid luck or stubbornest that helped me stay. I found the ugly search bar and I’m thinking to myself OK, I'm not an idiot I can figure things out so I start to read all about Steem, all about the Steemit ecosystem. I stumbled with Steemit’s very own Librarian(as I call him) @lexiconical and read about cryptos and Steem until my head hurts.

So, what's the secret? who is using Voodoo up in here? How can I fit in?

   And then, I got lucky yet again, or to be more accurate I got curious and then lucky. I found this little devil avatar (@luzcypher) talking up an open mic… Open Mic? What is this? Well, music is my thing, my passion my life, let me check this out.

   And just like that I found my first community on Steemit, the amazing open mic family. I recorded a little video of an original song, with no expectation and a hint of "frek it sauce", and woke up to a @curie vote and supportive, loving feedback.

   I was fully awake by 6am with energy I had not felt in a long, long time. I've told @luzcypher before that finding Steemit, finding the openmic got me out of an emotional rut, and that is no exaggeration. Having a community you belong to, a place that not only welcomes you, but also appreciates what you can bring to the table, is absolutely priceless. And its because of this experience that I wanted to write this entry and ask you a question.

   How many minnows jump onto Steemit and never find their home? How many users quit, because they simply get tired of swimming alone on the sea? I think we can make a difference, I believe you can make a difference. When you find a new user a little lost, not interacting right, asking for votes, begging for follows. What do you do? What should you do?

    The best part about this, the most amazing element of this reflection, of the answer to the question: "Have you helped a Minnow today? is that when you help a minnow, you also grow, when you help a fellow brother, a sister, you also learn, you grow your own worth on the platform.... You win, as much as they do.

So before you sign off Steemit for the day, let me ask you again...

Have you helped a Minnow today?

Much love