As I started in on my "daily rounds" on Steemit today, I found it hard to get past the increasing "density" of posts complaining and lamenting and bellyaching about the various issues the Steemit community currently faces.

The Blue Butterfly of Happiness?

Sure, "abusive" self-upvoting, botnets, paid resteems, comment spam, vote-4-vote begging, paid upvotes and other things are definitely an issue... and I'm not suggesting we should ignore them, or sweep them under the rug.

I just wanted to take a moment to remind myself-- and all of YOU-- that we're still part of a pretty amazing and awesome "social experiment" here. Steemit may have its flaws-- and we definitely need to talk about them-- but I'd still rather be spending my social media time here, as opposed to on Farcebook or elsewhere.

Which made me think...

So Let's Take a Moment for GRATITUDE!

Frankly, I'm grateful I found Steemit and have been able to blog here, for the last six months! And I'm grateful that I have rekindled an interest in writing that fizzled over a decade ago... thanks to Steemit.

Cartoon
Complaints... or Gratitude?
Source: https://me.me/i/o-mike-baldwin-cornered-complaints-gratitude-subscribe-to-our-mailing-3119752

I am also grateful for having earned enough rewards this year to buy two rear tires for our car, and to pay a couple of our spring heating bills that were super high. That's my best result from content creation since the early days of Squidoo and HubPages. That's pretty awesome... especially in a time when "rewards for content" sites had been mostly written off as a "dead format" due to declining ad revenues.

I'm grateful for the many great people I have had the privilege of meeting here; people I would not otherwise have known were it not for the exceptionally high level of engagement and community Steemit offers!

I'm grateful for having improved my writing quite a bit, as a result of venturing outside some of my fairly tight niche topics.

I'm grateful for my renewed interest in photography, which has also served to help me pay more active attention to the world around me.

I'm really grateful for being able to publish on an advertising free platform. How cool is THAT, in these times of eternal "targeted" ads and ads masquerading as content? And how cool that we don't have to "support" our rewards by endorsing an ocean of advertising!

Just pause for a moment... and consider some of these. Perhaps you have others, of your own?

Steemit Didn't "Hire" You, nor Did They Contract With You!

AutumnLeaf
Autumn leaf

Another thing I would like to point out to those who are deeply immersed in complaining-- especially about their (shrinking?) rewards-- is that Steemit didn't hire you.

You are not an employee who was promised a paycheck in exchange for doing anything. You are also not a contractor who was promised something in exchange for services rendered!

To the extent there was any promise AT ALL, it was that this is a social content platform where you can publish your creativity, and the possibility exists that you might get a reward.

Please read that last sentence really carefully, before regaling anyone with sob stories about what "Steemit owes you." And if you think "Steemit owes you" because one of your friends showed you a post that made $1000s... it's not Steemit you need to be mad at, but your friend... for using deceptive marketing.

Admiral
Red Admiral Butterfly

Well, that was mostly what I wanted to say... we now return to our regularly scheduled programming!

If this post offered you a brief change of perspective... why not take a moment to resteem it. Not because because I'm going to "make a few cents," but because it's a right thing to spread a little positivity. Let's see how many people we can reach!

How about YOU? What are YOU grateful for? Has Steemit changed your life-- in little ways, or large? Notwithstanding that there definitely are some things that need to change-- isn't this a pretty amazing place, all in all? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170809 16:39 PDT