(Srry I'm not gud at writing yet :)
So last year at the end of January, I had absolutely no fkn clue what I was doing when it came to personal finance, and taking on investing my "savings" on my own, rather than relying on a "trusted" financial institution, or investment firm.. The first step was the cancel and withdraw my investments from the company that my boss(uncle) encouraged me to start using about 4 years ago. I had been putting my bi-yearly bonus checks away, and investing in "preferred stocks" with an average of 6% returns..
The reason I joined hive, and got into crypto a year ago is because I have a continuously diminishing faith in many if not most of the things that give the U.S. dollar its value; and those "preferred" stalks were paying out in U.S. dollars which I can not help but hear every day about how this currency has a continually diminishing value, as the central authorities continually print more and more.
... Another reason is because I think we are long over-due for a revolution to combat and address the malfeasance in government, and since learning about blockchain, and hive specifically, I've come to realized that the solutions I once had, could be implemented more efficiently on something like hive, and that we can implement them peacefully without firing a single shot.
When I first got on hive.. the first week or month was me trying to figure out how all of this worked, and trying to connect with people and ask questions.. and basically finding out that what I heard on many different podcasts, was an over simplified fairy tale almost, where users could "spin up" things without asking permission.. etc..etc well the price of "BEE" back when those podcasts were made, might have been alot lower.. but the development of front-ends and tokenised tribes seemed like it was going to be alot easier, and/or that there was going to be people here with experience who would be happy to help get more people and projects on-board. sadly, this is a complicated, expensive, and daunting task, but it was the most intriguing of all the aspects of hive.
(easy work-around: just create a community, and be happy earning hive)
Many of the next few months (after my first couple on hive) I started to become invested in Cub Finance, like alot of the people on this blockchain did, and I, like many others.. invested in the worst possible time (bought at $5 sold at $3 now cub rests at $0.25)
After I was losing money with CUB, and I was already on BSC, I tried my hand at being an early mover by investing in other shitcoin start-ups that people in hive-related discords were talking about..
there was: DragonBall Finance, A dog themed one, Our.Glass, Bonfire, NudeZCoin, and probably more that I am forgetting about.
long story short, most if not all them failed. there was some extreme highs, and even more extreme lows.. but the one thing that stayed consisted was hive.
over those 6 months of shitcoin investing, I have accumulated so many regrets, and things that I think about constantly, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it, other than the lesson that I learned along the way.
At about the end of summer last year is when the BSC shitcoin scheme came crashing down around me, and when I took a crypto break for a bit, and started to re-focus back on hive. I'm not a very consistent person and the only thing I really do consistently, is to be inconsistent, and to use a lot of commas when I write stuff..
(I cant imagine anyone enjoys reading what I write (lol)
When I came back from my crypto break, I was listening to alot of people talk about splinterlands, and went ahead and added another regret to my plate: The regret of sleeping on splinterlands and not investing & playing it sooner.
So a built a modest deck, that might be able to get me out of bronze league, if only I weren't so damn inconsistent. But even the best of us aren't cut out for that amazing card game (rite 
One thing that I have been doing consistently on HIVE, is listening to podcasts from some of the people who I consider to be highly important to this ecosystem, which are: Taskmasters daily Vlogs, CryptoManiacs podcast with Jon and Task, LeoFinance past and present podcasts, 
In november when hive was pumping, I took advantage of the first pump (add this to the list of regerts) and bought a brand new computer in order to be ready for the opportunity to provide infrastructure for SPKnetwork and the incentivized/decentralized/off-chain data storage system that they are creating.
@samostically and the Hive-naija community and all the love/friendship surrounding them
@blezyn and the crochets that she makes, and all her other posts
@yousafharoonkhan walking in the fog and showing us his neighborhood and his culture
@skatehive community, and interacting with the folks who they've newly onboarded
@edicted and taskmaster, and all of the incredibly detailed posts that they make
@arcange, 
@dalz, and 
@penguinpablo (probably more) doing the detailed stats on hive activity and finances
@beeswap & BXT https://beeswap.dcity.io/bxt
@gerber will never go on a podcast.. he's made a great platform for us to use and interact with liquidity pools.