Life consists of light and dark, good and bad, positive and negative.
Steemit is no different.
I think sometimes people have an idealistic expectation for Steemit to be some bubble of complete positive perfection, and they get very upset when they realize it isn't.

When Steem and SBD are down and payouts are low, people tend to get into a negative mindset.
There seems to be more complaints about vote selling, bid bot abuse, reward pool abuse, the trending page, spamming, high-quality content not being rewarded, rage quitting etc.

I understand.
Sometimes life can feel like a huge pile of suck.
Life isn't perfect and neither is Steemit, but staying in a negative space only makes things worse.

Come back from the Darkside!!!

Whenever I'm feeling stuck in negativity I think of the Tree of Life.
One side is the Pillar of Mercy and the other side is the Pillar of Severity.
The goal is to strive for the Middle Pillar.
Recognizing the good as well as the bad, and striving for balance.

Ok, I may have just went off on a bit of an esoteric tangent there so let me put it this way.

During our Minnow University show, I was reminded of the comedian Louis CK when he was telling a joke about cell phones and being ungrateful for amazing technology.
He was talking about how funny it was to him when people complained about their cell phones, like when they didn't have a strong signal or it was taking too long for their text to go through.
He said something like "Give it a second will ya? It's going to space...will you give it a second to get back from space???"
His point was that we are complaining about this completely amazing technological invention that we all have and acting like it's a pile of garbage.
It is funny when you think about it.
Humans adapt quickly and we tend to forget that it really wasn't that long ago that we didn't have cell phones, or internet....or electricity, etc.

I can complain about my cell phone, but what is my alternative?
A landline?
Well, that sucks.

I can complain about Steemit, but what is my alternative?
Facebook?
Where I don't get paid for posting?
No, thanks.

My point here being that Steemit is the amazing invention in this case.

We can recognize the negative and become the change we want to see in the world while also recognizing the positive.

So, strive for the middle pillar, don't give up.....and give it a second to get back from space!!!!

Minnow University is brought to you by witness Hive account@swelker101 with support from Hive account@isaria and Hive account@kubbyelizabeth to help new Steemit users understand the concepts and basics of Steemit and other STEEM blockchain platforms. We have working relationships with MSP at PALnet and The Writer's Block to help educate minnows on how to grow their accounts without resorting to spam or practices that may stunt their ability to flourish on the platform. Please join us at our discord server.