I was a kid. They told me "You have so much potential!" "You can be whatever you want to be!" "You can do anything you want!" Blah blah blah... I understand the reasons why you don't put down a child's dream. I do. You don't want to hurt their feelings. Children are fragile, and tend to be proud of their ideas. Encouragement is fantastic! But encouragement needs to go hand and hand with guidance. When the little boy who was always the smallest kid in his class, (whose mother was four foot eleven and father was five foot nine, giving him little chance of being above average in height) says he wants to be a professional basketball player when he grows up, you might want to try to encourage one of his other talents. When the kid gets to high school (still the smallest kid in class) and gets made fun of for even mentioning out loud that he wants to play basketball, it's going to crush him. You can't let a kid who is never going to be taller than five and a half feet believe he can grow up to be a pro basketball player. It just isn't realistic.
Image is from South Park. Took the screenshot while watching the episode.
I was a kid and kids need guidance. Suffice it to say, I grew up believing I could be a Portland Trailblazer. (my hometeam all through growing up, and the only team I have ever rooted for) I didn't realize until high school there was no ammount of practice that could overcome being a short skinny guy. I'm not blaming anyone for my lot in life, but a push in another direction wouldn't have hurt.
So now I was in high school. My dreams smashed. All my plans ruined. So now what do I do? Look into other interests. I like video games. How many people actually make a living off of video games, though? Besides, I like video games, and I have beaten more than my fair share of titles, but it's recreation. If it was a job, like bug testing or some such, then I wouldn't enjoy it as much. It might even take away from games that I played in my free time. Also, I'm only okay at most video games (except SMB3 for NES, I rule that game, no one can compare), making a living from them wouldn't work for me. What else? I liked drawing when I was a child, but I think a lot of my interest in that came from growing up poor. Pencils and paper were cheap. Well, cheap pencils and paper were cheap. The drawing pencils I wanted weren't in the budget. Not to mention colored pencils. Very discouraging. And again, I'm only okay, and making it a job would take away from my enjoyment of drawing.
I drew this.
Playtimes over.
No more school, and I tried college. Didn't work for me. My problem was the homework. Not that I couldn't do it. But I never liked homework. School is supposed to prepare you for adulthood and a career or job. So I go to work for eight hours a day, and when I'm done, I go home and do something else. I don't do my work from home for another four or five hours. Making people pay money to do everything themselves, AT HOME, with little to no direct guidance just seems like teachers being lazy. (my college teachers, not all teachers) I could read those texts and do the same practice excercises from home, without paying a fortune for someone to do nothing. I just don't get the fancy piece of paper that is supposed to get me a better job. Plus again, kinda poor, paying for college was too expensive anyway, especially if you don't think they are actually doing anything.
So now I'm an adult.
What to do now? Get a real job. Punch a time clock. Work hard. Your hard work will get you recognized. Blah blah blah. Sigh. I have worked a lot of "real jobs". From janitorial to caregiving, from flipping fries to setting up and tearing down concert stages. In my experience, hard work does get you noticed by those in positions above you. They notice how much harder you work than they do, and it earns you the animosity of those with titles and possitions they don't deserve. So many jobs where I show up and work as hard as I can, just to be let go because someone in management thought I only worked as hard as I do because I wanted their job. I actually have a strong work ethic. If I am doing a job, no matter what it is, be it washing dishes, running a cash register, manual labor or whatever, I am going to do it the right way. I am also the kind of person who believes in fair pay for fair work. If I am being paid to be at a job somewhere, I am going to work for my pay. I can't stand being at work and getting paid to do nothing. I keep doing something, even if it's wiping down the same counter I have already wiped down twenty times that day. I have seen a meme on facebook that says "They have this cool thing at my work where if you are good at your job, you get to do everyone else's work, too." How many of us have had jobs like that? At one of my jobs, my customer service was so good that I got fifty positive customer service surveys in one month, all on my shifts with my name on them. The rest of the employees got a total of five. I personally had fifty out of fifty five of the store surveys in one month. The following month, the store got seventy one positive surveys, fifty seven of which were mine. I single handedly brought that store from nowhere on the map, to number ONE in customer service for our entire region, which is all of Washington State, most of Oregon, and a good part of Idaho. I was rewarded with fewer hours per week, worse shifts. (split shifts, split days off, shorter shifts more times a week, etc.) For six months I earned awards for that store, awards that store had never earned before (and hasn't earned another since, cementing my belief that it was my service that earned those rewards). The kind of customer service awards that made the District Manager (DM) go out and buy nice frames for so we could display them in the store. When I asked my boss about a raise since I was doing so well, she said she had to talk to her boss. After a few days wait, I assume the time it took her to formulate her plan, she claimed that I had recieved a "bad review" (which no one could show me proof of) from a "secret shopper" (who I don't believe existed) and I had to be let go. Come to find out, she was threatened by how well I was doing and was afraid I was going to get her possition of store manager. (She wasn't doing so well as manager and was already afraid she was going to lose her title). What the hell? So I get fired because I am better at my job than my boss? Sigh. I have had similar experiences at many different jobs.
Now what?
I'm approaching middle age. I currently work at a gas station. I have no career to speak of. I have little to show for years of working for someone else. Some DVDs, some books, some older video games and a large number of MTG cards (some of which are worth a few bucks). Very few other possessions of any real value. I've never managed to save even one thousand dollars in the bank at one time. So what to do?
Life is strange sometimes. A little over a year ago, I learned about cryptocurrency. Well, I didn't learn much. I lost a lot of money on HYIPs. Made me disinterested in crypto to tell the truth. Of course, losing money on something makes a lot of people lose their interest in said thing. Then back in February, my brother introduced me to Steemit. I was hesitant to get back into cryptos, but I have a gambling problem, and this was a better alternative to scratch tickets and video poker machines. So I started buying Steempower. A few dollars here, a few dollars there, about what I would have spent on my gambling habits. Steem was seven cents each at the time. I figured "What's the worst that could happen? I just would have lost the money to a poker machine anyway." Best gamble I ever made!
I have never really been into social media. I only made a facebook account for a game that I used to play. It was a stand alone game, but was absorbed by facebook and I had to make a facebook account to continue playing. I don't have any other social media accounts. Just never really interested me. Steemit is different. Steemit has made me a better person, just by reading some of the posts people have made.
Example.
When I first made my poloniex account, I said "I'm going to play this like a video game until I win". I lost a lot of money this way...* Investment isn't a game. Then I read an article on here on Steemit (I am really sorry I can't remember who it was by, it was a few months ago) that said something to the effect of
If you are going to invest in something, whether it's crypto, stocks or whatever, do your research. Find out what it is, what it's used for, what it's going to be used for, and what, if any, plans it has for growth or future developement. If you decide to invest in something, invest in something you believe in and support, and go for the long investment.
It was a very well written post, in depth, and made a lot of really good points. Those are the parts that stuck the most. I've learned a lot of other valuable things in my time on this platform. I have become a better person, because I have found a great group of people to spend my time sharing common interests in. I talk to some really interesting people about some really interesting topics. I enjoy my time on Steemit! Far more than I ever did on facebook.
Steemit is quite possibly the best thing to ever happen to me! I've also learned to be more patient. Hold onto my coins and investments. I bought some bitshares when they were worth about five hundred satoshis. I managed to hold onto a few of them. Quite happy I did. Learned to hold onto my coins from spending time reading on this platform. Managed to get to two thousand Steempower by investing about two hundred dollars. My wallet is worth about five thousand USD right now! The "power-down" feature and having to wait thirteen weeks has taught me to have patience and not spend my money just because I have it. Plus, I really like my influence! Last time I checked, my vote adds six or seven cents on its own! I have really enjoyed being able to add value to posts with my vote. I have enjoyed watching my influence grow, too. It wasn't that long ago that my vote was only worth a penny. I used to have a problem with quitting things if they made me mad. Steemit has helped me with that, too. I got mad at Steemit a couple times when I was a new user and didn't know anything about anything about how this platform worked. But three months is a long time to wait for two hundred dollars, so I kept learning more about the platform. Kept learning and kept posting.
I love the community here!
My phone crapped out on me a couple weeks ago and I didn't really have the money to buy a new one. So I reached out to @neoxian and asked for a loan. Where else can you do peer to peer loans, anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, instantly and without any fees? I don't know of anywhere but Steemit! I also managed to pay back my loan, in half the time the loan was for. You can read the posts HERE and HERE
So this post originally started as a means for me to vent after a bad day at work and has been edited and retyped into an almost autobiography. It has taken me a long time to make this post. (I am still limited to Steemingit from my phone, and it takes a long time for me to type when I fat finger every other word typing on the small screen) Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I really need to get to sleep. I am hoping to get a decent computer soon, but I am holding off until I can buy something decent, I don't want to get some piece of crap I am just going to have to replace in a couple months. Once I do, posting won't take me nearly so long.