You don’t remember where or how it started but one day you get introduced to a new game, the game is called Gleamit.
The game of Gleamit is like the game of life, most of the same rules apply as well: You move forward by providing value to the community, life is has ups and downs, and if you care and work hard enough you get closer to the goal.
The big difference however, is that if it reaches a certain level of success the game of Gleamit can change the game of life, or at least certain aspects of it. That possibility then becomes something that most new adopters inevitaby get inspired by.
Now, most of those adopters (Let’s call them Gleamians) are driven by similar goals. They want to watch their favorite platform change the rules of the game from within the game. So it’s only a matter of time until many of them try to assist that disruptive technology in its revolutionary journey.
Furthermore, the social aspect of the game provides the opportunity of receiving monetary rewards to those who are willing to create valuable content. Not only that, but the game also rewards its participants with shares of the company in form of vests.
This way, if you are really interested in the prosperity and long term success of the Gleamit then you would get to be in one form or another part of the success, especially if the value of Gleam rises after a great level of adoption.
In a way, if you really want the platform to succeed, then your prosperity is somehow correlated to the prosperity of the company. And it goes without saying that there is more incentive for you when Gleamit grows and prospers than the opposite.
Amazing, isn’t it? Especially if you haven’t invested any money in the company to begin with.
But here’s the problem, there are some Gleamians however that only seem to focus on the immediate monetary gain.
“Quick, let’s milk this fucker while there is still a chance!”
And when that doesn’t work, they spend the countless prescious hours complaining about it while they could’ve allocated that time in a far better use. Then they're suck in an unhealthy feedback loop, they become victims to their urge for instant gratification.
Some people think that’s it’s a good idea to just keep messaging their posts to all Whales, Orcas, Dolphins... Without realizing that everybody else is doing the same.
The problem with this strategy is that it’s as effective as standing on a construction building and keep shouting at women all day, complementing them for their good looks.
And just like in the game of life, the same goes for game of Gleamit, that urge for instant gratification often causes them to act against their own self-interest.
They start coming up with insane strategies such us sending 0,01 Gleam Dollars and ask for an upvote, trying to guilt the other person to give them what they seek.
The truth is, guilting people is never an acceptable way to interact. And neither is this one: “Hey! I just upvoted you, now upvote me back. You owe me!”
That’s Not Hustling
I don’t know what to call it, but that’s a totally different animal. The problem with approaches like this one, is not only they are inefficient, it’s that they are extremely counterproductive to the desirable outcome.
But I guess that’s what happens when you let the urge take the pilot seat.
My biggest fear writing this post, is that it’s the good ones that start to feel self-conscious about their interactions while they have done nothing wrong.
The trolls will probably continue to do the same anyways, they probably have been doing the same thing all their life and will continue doing so till the day they die. Even worse, they’re probably already engaging in all types of emotional blackmail, and guilting schemes with their partners and kids.
The funny part about the whole thing is that I’m writing this alternate universe metaphor just to get the story across before their reactionary anger builds a wall. But this probably wouldn’t work.
Who am I kidding? We all know I’m talking about steemit anyways.
Waiting for Greatness
Sometimes I receive messages from people asking me about writing advice, surprisingly enough, one of the most common questions I receive is this one:
“How do I become a great writer?”
I usually tell them that first of all, I am not a great writer and that my goal is just to keep learning and improving because to me that it’s a process that never stops. Then I ask them out of curiosity about what does being a “great writer” mean to them.
Again, you’d be surprised how many times I've heard a variation of the following:
“I just meant that I want do well in steemit. What’s the one thing that I can do to hit the jackpot?”
And that’s the part where I don’t answer anymore.
The truth is I'm never concerned about instant jackpots, and I don’t know a fail-proof way to success. To me life has up and downs, and failing is a part of the game, and to be totally honest, I never heard of any effortless thing that guarantees success. Quite frankly, there are no guarantees.
What I can tell you on the other hand, is there is a sure ironclad way for you to NOT achieve that greatness that you seek.
Entitlement is Not a Friend
As in inner coping mechanisms that often turn against you, hardly anything competes with entitlement. You think you’re coping because blaming others is easier, but what you don’t realize is those instincts are working against you at the very same time.
This not only exclusive to business by the way, the same thing applies to personal relationships as well. And if you don’t believe me ask yourself this: What happens when you take people for granted?
The problem with entitlement is that it can turn against you so quick and so fast that not only it strays you away from your path, but it blinds you completely. Then all of the sudden you start exporting all your uncomfortable feelings to other people and start blaming them for your perceived failures.
And now you’re stuck playing the blame game.
You look at the trending page and you start asking yourself questions like this: Why him and not me?
Let me stop you right there, because in case you haven’t that type behavior is not precisely what you would associate with greatness.
“This guy doesn’t deserve all of these upvotes, that girl is always featured for no good reason…Etc.”
This is how it starts, the envy, pointing fingers... And before you know it, you start acting on those feelings and you start sending messages left and right and spamming the chat rooms with jealousy and envy in order to influence people to not vote for others so they can vote for you instead.
And then when that plan doesn’t work either (Duh?) You start finding a common enemy to rally against and blame, in this case: The Whales.
The Lame Game of Blame
You know these are just people like you and me, right? They have different lives, different opinions, different situations… It’s not a one uniform enemy that’s conspiring against you.
But what if you stopped thinking about yourself and about what you’re ‘owed’, and put yourself in their situation? What if they are actually working hard to make all of this come true? Have you ever stopped to think about that?
Just look at what steem has on the rest of currencies (obviously wishing them success as well):
More diversity, more potential for mass adoption, countless new initiatives and apps every day… Plus something that no one else has: The power of story. If social networking is what you’re looking for, this is an substantial positive.
And not to forget, there are networks of steemians who are already dedicated to the prosperity and long term success of steemit.
Whatever happened to growing from a pond to a lake to an ocean? These things don’t happen overnight, we’re still at the beginning, remember?
Don’t let that instant gratification get the best of you.
We still have a long way to go, but if we want to grow as a platform and achieve levels of success that we aim for, one thing is sure, this is not going to happen by bringing each other down.
Think about it this way, what if you were a whale? What would you rather? That you see a vibrant community growing and inspiring each other to rise beyond any other platform? Or do you wanna wake up to 120 messages where most of them can be resumed in one word: “Gimme”.
And then when that strategy doesn’t work, guess what happens? Coping mechanism number two steps in and guess what? There is always someone else to blame.
Always think about the other person’s perspective before assigning the blame, or even better, don’t play the blame game.
Again, think about it this way, what if you work for a similar platform only that this time the platform is run by someone else – say, for example Elon Musk. You see, Elon doesn’t constantly keep shifting between a revolutionary genius that tries to change the world, and a demon, depending on how his decisions affect your personal situation. It’s not how it works.
Do you see how unhealthy this is?
Now I know what you’re gonna say: “But… That dude is ‘hoarding’ all the upvotes! I write way better than him. That so not fair!”
Maybe, or maybe it is fair? How would you know? What if that guy does a lot of work behind the scenes? Have you even stopped to think about that? And more importantly, that’s not your problem.
Maybe they reward familiarity because it’s very important in any social media platform, maybe they try to help but they can’t, or maybe you’re just three feet from gold.
And maybe, and this is the most important maybes of all, you should concentrate on improving your situation and providing more value rather than trying to influence and sometimes even bully people to stop voting for others and start voting for you.
The truth is, people who wanna complain will always complain. Now it’s the whales, later it will be something else, and before that it was boobs.
Oh yeah, boobs. Good times!
“Yup, she’s a boobster! That’s why she got the votes”.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that those strategies never actually work in real life.
Fact of the matter, you can’t fake your way into passion, hard work and attention. The way forward is to providing as much value as possible. But if you want, stay playing the blame game, while the rest are moving forward.
So to answer that initial question: “How do I do to become great?” I don’t know, but if you don’t mind my suggestion would be this:
How about you adopt those greatness traits now, and start acting like what the "great" version of you would, and the rest will maybe come later.
After all, what if success was a byproduct?
I have a confession to make, I wasn’t really sure if to write this piece or not. I have been pondering this for a while, but then I realized that popular narratives like those can turn into rhetoric, and rhetoric can be dangerous sometimes, because it can sway the masses to the land where nothing good gets done, and pretty soon you run out targets to blame.
And the reason I wasn’t sure if to write about it is because I’m aware that trolls will always do what trolls do. There are those who aim to create and those who want to destroy, so this post and a million of others won’t probably change a damn thing.
But to all of you who are in the middle, those who are not sure which path to take yet:
Please say no to class warfare.
Remember why you joined in the first place, I know it’s easy to forget among all the noise. But we have an amazing opportunity to contribute into bringing something great into the world. We will have ups and downs, yes. We can fail, absolutely. But the upside is so absolutely beautiful that you wouldn’t wanna miss on it.
And just like the game of life, the same rules apply: Don’t take anything for granted, produce more than you consume, don’t be afraid to care, make people smile... And more important of all:
Enjoy the process.
Because if there is one thing we forget the most while playing the game, is the playing part.
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