I want to be honest about how I feel. I’m jealous. I don’t want to be jealous and I’m doing what I can NOT to be jealous. Still, the only way I’m going to get over these feelings is to be honest about them. Take this as an invitation to be honest as well.

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Sometimes I feel that my natural and relaxed attitude towards my artistic output puts me at a disadvantage. I don’t want it to. I believe in being natural. I could have been famous at least 3 times over with my music but I don't like to do things that don't feel natural to me. I don’t want to treat everything as an opportunity to take advantage of. I don’t want all my actions to be part of my own plot for personal success. I don’t want to have to fit inside of some widely accepted idea of professional. I don’t want to always set a schedule, always make a plan and think about profit and gain whenever I do anything. I don’t want to kiss ass. I don’t want to wait for those with more influence to realize that I’m “providing value” as they say. I don’t want to keep my opinions and philosophies silent because it won’t impress the whales. Still I don't want to watch as all my peers become dolphins without me.

I have a community to support and I feel owe them more than $0.25 upvotes. I also deserve to have it easier.

I have amazing support from lots of amazing people. I’ve looked at the comments to some of my posts in awe. I feel so honored to inspire so much conversation sometimes and to receive so much sincere feedback. I love the friends I’ve made here and anyone whose supported me in passing, so this is not a complaint towards you, not by any means.

Still I feel frustrated. I feel frustrated that my success depends mostly on having a few dolphins and big minnows, that great success would depends on more dolphins and whales, that so much is dependent on auto-vote, and that I find myself missing a lot of great posts by friends because My payouts suffer when I don’t do the rounds and try to impress more people that I have a high degree of competency and dedication towards the community.

I also don’t want to start relying on autovote even more to support users I want to support, but as I feel I need to look towards bigger accounts to find my own support, I feel less time for the users who need my support.

I feel frustrated that more users with large accounts don’t notice and invite me into their circles.

I’m craving my own success, but I am also craving the ability to help others on the platform do well.
I see users who started around the same time as I did, Hive account@mobbs, Hive account@suesa, Hive account@reggaemuffin, Hive account@heymattsokol, Hive account@guyfawkes4-20 really killing it. There are new users like Hive account@axios and Hive account@spiritualmax whose positivity and quality content is really allowing them to shine. They all deserve it! No doubt!

I am jealous of all these people though, I need to be honest about it. We’ve all managed to show the community that we have something to offer, that we deserve success, but they’ve all managed to impress more users with higher Steem power, early enough that they don’t get tired and become lazy about their content. For months I tried to do everything organically, to avoid appealing to groups like Hive account@adsactly and Hive account@sndbox for help. Eventually when I saw everyone else taking off with the help of such groups, I made a compromise and applied but both were full already.

I try to focus on what I can do rather than being jealous, but sometimes I tire myself out or hit s brick wall.

Perhaps they’re work is more valuable than mine, but in the end, it’s really just about how much steem power your supporters have. I didn’t get as far as I have because a bunch of minnows liked me. Those minnows happened to work for Hive account@ocd. I got a huge bump with help from Hive account@cryptohustlin who showed my work to a few whales who upvotes it once or twice. I get consistent payouts thanks to a few friends who believe in me and put me on autovote. It isn’t about how many upvotes you get, it’s about whose upvotes you get and who has you on autovote, it sucks.

I don’t think this post will do much to impress the larger accounts who seem to believe that you should just work your ass off forever and shut up and be thankful and one day they’ll notice and throw you a bone. I’ve spent 6 months participating here full time, 17 weeks on the Deadpost and we still can’t pull a consistently high payout despite tons of minnow support, unless a dolphin or whale notices...which they SOMETIMES do.

I don’t like going around to promote on others posts but I kind of feel at a loss here and might have to start spamming links. I may have to start using autovotes a bit more strategically in order to get some dolphins to do the same...I don’t know. I thought I shouldn’t give so much of my upvotes to bigger members of the community because I want to save it for those who deserve it more. I just know all my friends who are struggling deserve more than a tiny upvote from me and I deserve more for myself and I am trying my hardest to find a way to make it happen.

I’m mostly frustrated about the fact that Steem has caught up to SBD and so it will take a lot more to power up. I feel like I’m missing a chance to be able to carry lots of weight here and really make a difference.

The Deadpost Initiative should be trending already and i want to make sure that happens. I do not want to use cheap tactics like forcing people to resteem in order to be eligible or giving sbd to all participants so more people join. I want to make sure my influence grows so I can spread support to smaller members of the community who are struggling because they don’t fit in with the groups that have lots of dolphins and whale support.

I love anyone who puts the time and effort into reading and commenting on my articles, I’m sorry for the whining, I’m just trying to be honest about these feelings which I sometimes try to brush off to the side,only to find that they come back stronger next time. I’m thankful for my payouts and everyone who upvotes and resteemed. I’m just quite ambitious and see an opportunity here and I’m trying my best to make sure it doesn’t pass us by and that we don’t need to sacrifice our own way of doing things to achieve success.

Thanks for your continued support, I’m always here if you need me. If you have something you want to get off your chest or if you want to tell me I’m a spoiled brat, come find me, we can talk it out.

I will catch up with all my comments on all my posts later, I want to cheer myself up first and come back at your with more energy.