Hi again fellow steemians. This isn't intended to be a post to cause more scaremongering due to the current drama taking place with the Crypto and Stock Markets. I am genuinely writing it from a perspective of someone new to the space and new to the steemit community.
As you will see from one or two posts and comments I have made I honestly believed (and still do) that blockchain is a good thing that can create change. After much watching and trying to learn I finally just the other week began to invest small amounts of money. Jeeez what a rollercoaster it has been!!!
I don't come from a background of money, nor do I desire wild riches. I just have some goals that I wish to achieve and sadly I need a little money to get them going. The ironic thing is that my ambitions will never see me very rich either even if I exceed all of them. I am pretty basic and getting more basic as I get older I genuinely desire less and less material things. In fact the total opposite! I walk past shops fancy windows, see this so called fashion hanging off people, look at OTT cars sitting in back to back traffic and in general observe the waste of our planets resources and and destruction of the environment (not to mention the slow decay of our race) caused by the insanity of relentless consumerism that drives so many of our self obsessed ego's. I observe all of this with ever more dismay and total disbelief that we have got to this point. This desire for things, useless stuff, so called life improving gadgets and things to brag about or enjoy for ever decreasing meaningless short spells of time. What happens then? This crap just sits in drawers or cupboards, spare rooms, the attic.. even in rented storage units to just gather dust before its inevitable trip to landfill, an incinerator or becoming a new addition to another Ocean Dead Zone! This desire for stuff that enslaves us to fiat currency and time consuming meaningless jobs in the grand scheme of things has taken a grip on the world so tightly with each passing day that it is literally squeezing the life out of us all.
So why? Why do I want to invest in Cryptos? Why am I here moaning about it and not out saving the world wearing underpants made of leaves and throwing home made spears at Amazon depots? Well I am getting to that...
There have been many many opportunities presented in my life that I could have accumulated money. Not masses but some (more than I chose to anyway). I have bagged fairly good jobs, had money handed down to me, opportunities to bag a sudden windfall or promotion in a company have all come and gone. I not only let these opportunities pass me by but often ran in the opposite direction. Hitch hiking my way around, from town to town, county to county, job to job but never really letting the dust settle for too long before my feet got itchy and the road tempted me to somewhere else. Am I a fool? Have I wasted opportunities? Haha of course. I wanted to enjoy life in a simple and fun way, didn't have much to lose and no one expected too much from me. I did however always have some dream of something better but for one reason or another didnt really make tracks towards it. Maybe it was intentional, maybe I felt I couldn't do great things, maybe I just wanted to wait for the tomorrow that didnt exist. Well that was until my children were born, that kind of changes shit for most people.
"Kids!!!" "WTF???" "I am a Dad, now what?" "Oh my god" "Why did I let life pass me by?" "Where do I begin now?"
All of this and much more was running around like herd of wild Elephants in my mind. It wasn't about me anymore but all of a sudden these two little baby twins staring up at me. I was now their safety, provider, caretaker and provider of love in this world of ever decreasing love. It hit it home in a big way and made me not look at my dreams and goals as aspirations of "one day soon" but a heavy heart of "will I ever now get there". This wasn't from a perspective of self gratification or wanting my own success as I think I have illustrated by now that any small glimmer of that which did once exist in my ego was now long passed. So why then, what are my dreams you are asking? Why do you want to invest in Cryptos if not to just jump on this new get rich quick fad?
As you know I had let opportunity pass me by in exchange for carefree easy living, which worked fine for me then. I just assumed that one day I will give up some of my freedom and make a commitment to something just long enough to invest in some land and a business that can help make the world better, even if just a little bit. Now I had my babies and partner who was also all of a sudden out of her teaching job and dependant upon my small income. That goal now seemed pretty far off and getting further away with each second. My money was now for my family and not for any other purpose, saving for anything big is way off the agenda. Maybe I had passed up opportunities that will never return. As I had gotten older I had got more against the whole underlying ethics of most of society, take take take, me me me, so how was I ever going to take part in it. I mean, now I have four people depending on my income I don't just have to commit to something, get my money and then get out in as short a time as possible. No, this was going something far more time consuming. It will have to be a more substantial undertaking, quite a daunting thought. Would I have to get into the corporate world and eat humble pie for years on end as I tried to work my way up the ladder just enough to grab what I need and then bail? Hmmm didnt like that idea.
My twins are now 6yrs old and we also have a 2yr old daughter in the mix. All a total blessing but all adding complexity to my dilemma. I am still in the same job and still not earning much at all, we get by, we have some family time and the occasional meal or day out but nothing lavish. As they have grown and more of life has flowed by I began to watch the emergence of Cryptos and all the promises of tech and evolution it could bring. This finally seemed like the shot I had not to miss out. Not only did I not have to commit to some corporation and hand away my time to the grind but I could support something worthwhile. Maybe I could help fund an actual revolution and see change in the world whilst building my small pot into something a little larger to reach my life's goals of a sustainable small business and my own piece of land. So after waiting, watching, learning, seeing Bitcoin rise to an all time high I admit FOMO took me big time and I jumped in. I had a few grand stashed away towards our first ever house purchase. We are intending to buy something small and tired with a little bit of land in the cheaper parts of Scotland. Somewhere nice for the kids to grow up, cleaner air than here in London, all my family are there. Living is cheap and the city does nothing for me at all so its the winning solution right? Well, my pot of gold, as hard as I worked wasn't getting much bigger. So the time had come FOMO, no way! I am going for it and began investing in projects that looked cool. Researching people and their goals, their dreams. Some of them, Dan Larimer, Vitalik Buterin and Charles Hoskinson are three of the guys everyone knows and all in their own way had a good story to tell. This promise of change, revolution, anarchy, decentralisation, freedom, re distribution of wealth and beneficial unbreakable data that would remain unchanged within blockchains for as long as we can imagine. It all sounded too good to be true but jump right in I did waving my pieces of paper donning the Queen's head. Soon the height of excitement began to dwindle...
In what seemed the blink of an eye things took a turn. Not only had prices started to drop and FUD was running rampant. The whole paradigm seemed to change. Slowly emerged scammers, fraudsters, fake ICO's, ponzy schemes, rivalry and fear mongering. This promise of revolution all of a sudden seemed less sugar coated and ever more entangled with the corruption of the current society. I sit here now feeling that I had aspirations of big things from this technology for the world and for my family once I raised a little extra cash. I feel not disheartened that the money I had struggled to put together is fading away but more that the dream of this better world delivered via the blockchain is diminishing with it. I am sure one way or another that even if the market carries on the downward slump it is headed and I lose the whole investment that somehow not too far down the road I can recoup my money again. The disappointment of that outcome is more depressing because the the chance of such a revolution and better world emerging may not present itself again. At least not in our lifetimes.
Am I just a fool who read too far into something that was nothing more than a glamorous overhyped fable? Do you believe the possibility of positive change exists from this innovation in technology and the minds behind it? Should we let greed and ego destroy such an opportunity?
If you want to believe these promises are more than just a pipe dream. If you want to see something potentially world changing take place I urge you to realise the importance of us all as individuals. We vote with our money daily. As a vegan I vote and have seen immense change in recent years. We should all invest into the projects we believe in and now not just for money but to not let the media, the bankers, the whales and the corrupt scare the masses away from crypto currencies. We are so close to public adoption that we should not allow such bad press delay or even destroy this potential opportunity that has presented itself. Support the projects guys, for the right reasons. Eventually you will reap rewards but they wont just be money, they will be something far more valuable.
I have only been here on steemit a short time but already have engaged with some great people such as @louisthomas @eco-alex @dannyshine @PhiLakoneCrypto @magicalmoonlight @jerrybanfield and more... This is the community that I believe may listen to this post and not mock it. I am still not used to writing things like this so publicly as I keep it offline most of the time. Since seeing the activity here and with all that has happened in the crypto world I just feel inspired to shout and somehow try to achieve my goals whilst also being part of much bigger ones throughout the world
Thanks for reading folks your time is much appreciated. I hope you can take something beneficial away from this post.
