I Suppose This Is Worth Posting About

I don't want this to be like all the other acceptance speeches people make when they reach 500 followers

^{I find them boring}_{really boring}

That's why I didn't write this:
_{"Steemit has been an amazing journey for me, I've grown so much as a writer and a person and I've made so many friends and I feel like a real member of the community so thanks to all of you who've supported me and encouraged me to keep going on etc. etc. blah blah blah."}

I am however, going to say a few things; I know 500 followers isn't like landmark numbers, maybe it should've been 1000 followers.. or 100SP; but neither are measures of success, you can buy SP and you can follow for follow. I think the best measure of success is the feeling of success, not numbers.

I'd say maybe half of my followers are from steemengine.net which makes this even less of an achievement, and when I publish this post, I might have less than 500 followers thanks to this bot who un-follows and then re-follows me every couple of hours without fail:

But that's all besides the point, now I do actually want to write a bit about how I've enjoyed my steemit journey so far.

Becoming a Steemdev

Just last week, a submission I made was accepted by Hive account@utopian-io who upvoted my post well past $100, that was crazy for me, I did a little dance in my my room and told my mates - then I went out and spent all my real world money at the bar and then the casino to celebrate, I regretted it the next day. _{Getting accepted by utopian not only added monetary value to my account, but it encouraged me to follow the development route which I've been in love with since I first started programming 5 years ago. I felt accepted by the slightly exclusive developer community on steemit.}

Knowing People

When I first started on steemit, everyone was blank names, all randoms fighting for the whale votes and not giving a shit about each other. It only seemed that way, as I spent more and more time here, I learnt about these brilliant writers who never made it to say the top of the trending page, but produced some truly brilliant content on a regular basis. It took time and effort to find these hidden gems, but I'm glad I did.
^{Another thing I've noticed is that now, I can look in the comments section of popular posts and I'll see names that I recognize. How awesome is that? It's like living in a village or a small town, eventually you'll get to know a large portion of it's inhabitants.}

Winning Awards and Stuff

Another misconception I had when I first started was that it'd take months of graft before my hard work was even acknowledged, but I was wrong. About 5 or 6 weeks ago, I tried my hand at a comedy competition ( #comedyopenmic ) and I was awarded the Badge of Originality by Hive account@humanbot, and I won a prize in the competition - that post made twice what any of my other posts had made at the time and I learnt of some really funny people thanks to it.

Getting accepted into Hive account@qurator was a big milestone for me, it was a sign that my work was of a high enough quality to be in the club (mind, I was rejected the first time but I improved my work). _{Since being accepted, they've included a post in their Daily Qurator post, and they've resteemed my utopian-io entry from 'Becoming a Steemdev'.}

As if getting a Badge of Originality for my first attempt at comedy wasn't enough, I got another one for my first attempt at creative writing/short stories! So, thank you Hive account@carlgnash!

Other Milestones

Getting whitelisted on https://smartsteem.com/
Upvote becoming worth more than $0.01
50+ SP
Making it to 194^th the top 250 rewarded authors (07/03/2018)
My formatting guide actually being used and referenced in other peoples posts (well after payout, might I add).
Getting actual, organic $10 upvotes on occasion

That's enough blatant self-promotion for one day

^{I'll be back at it again in another three months!}