Why Steem?
At first glance, Steem is complicated. Maybe it's because I'm a Taurus and we tend to percieve things in large chunks, often overlooking obvious or crucial detail.. but it took me a while to fully understand Steem. I think once you get it though, you get it.
Steem is one of the original gangster blockchains. If we take a look at https://blocktivity.info/ you can see that Steem is one of the most widely used blockchains with some of the highest throughput.
While the trading volume is low, the price of Steem seems to have found a floor around .16c. It could go a little lower but I think the price is only one piece of the puzzle with Steem. Smart Media Tokens are coming to Steem soon and this could be a game changer.
Keep in mind, Steem is a coin -not a token. In crypto there is a distinct and important difference between coins and tokens and I think it's important you know the difference. I'm not going to tell you what it is, -you're going to have to go find out if you want to know, but lets just say I always feel more comfortable holding coins than tokens. (SMT's are going to be tokens on Steem).
Why Did I Power up 40,000+ Steem?
The reason I was so confident powering up 40,000+ Steem yesterday was because to me Steem sets itself apart from other cryptocurrencies by offering a real world utility that you don't see with other projects. I get rewarded based on my contribution to the network, in this manner it's a form of mining. And thats COOL AF!
Trading is... hard AF. For each time you have been successful, how many times have you wrecked yourself? Yeah, gotta be okay with losing and not really care if you win... but these markets are designed to TAKE YOUR MONEY. Steem is about mitigating the risk to reward ratio.
I am a singer/songwriter, a poet, a gamer, a producer, a voice actor, I have so much to offer the community, and I believe in leaving something behind that makes an impact.
Additionally, and probably most importantly I have to give a huge shout out to 
Security
As an IT technician and network security administrator I take security very seriously and Steem is literally the most secure crypto wallet on the blockchain. Steem provides you with not just one private key, but 5! 5 different private keys for different actions on Steem. In addition to the power down feature this makes Steem one of the most secure cryptocurrency platforms in existence!!
What excites me the most is the future. Knowing I will get rewarded for creating content is not only encouraging but motivating. I want to have full control of my own content, get compensated directly and fairly. What I contribute to the network I get back in return. Not always 1:1 but there are other ways to extract value besides in USD or Steem. Sometimes experience is worth more than $$.
The grind is real. @Numberofthingz out.
