The coming flood and learning to keep head above water

Every day I try to get a Steemleo post onto the blockchain and while getting some LEO is fantastic, there is more to it than that. I have struggled financially for much of my life and while it is easy to lay blame on my parents for not only failing to teach, but also failing to demonstrate good economic hygiene - I am an adult and have been for 75% of my lifetime - I should know better.

Arriving on Steem and starting to write my thoughts for the first time in my life, soon led to a shift in my thinking or rather, a shift in my attention. Much of what I have spent the last three years thinking about I had thought about previously, but due to the discomfort and my obvious failures in these areas, my mind would avoid spending too much time there.

Now, I spend most of my time in areas that have been uncomfortable for me in the past, namely economic consideration. And that is saying something considering I studied business, management and some economics at university. There is a massive difference between understanding the macro view and personal finance habits in the home. And as I have said in just about every skill area,

knowing is not doing.

While I have been writing about these things and would continue to do so without the Steemleo interface, what I have found is that it helps me stay more consistent and, the articles written by others in the community provide new insights as well as ideas for my mind to bounce around and develop in my own way. The token incentive is a great motivator too of course.

We are what we eat and I haven't spent enough of my youth chewing thoughts around personal economic availability and usage, instead I wasted much of my mental power on what doesn't actually hold much value, though I thought it did at the time. This s part of the maturing process of course.

Surrounding and immersing myself in crypto has led me to spend more time in areas that a normal life might overlook. It is a funny paradox as many of us often spend a great deal of time worrying about money, but not that much time actually thinking about how we can affect our position.

There are three core aspects in this area to demonstrate this, what we can control, what we can influence, and what we have no control over. For example, I had no control over who and how my parents were, but I did have influence over the lessons I learned from them, with control over my own actions. I didn't do well in this regard and I am chasing now because of it.

What I think people on Steem are going to value more and more as time goes on is the learning that they have had whilst here, and especially the changes in their own behavior led by deeper thoughts from being surrounded with different content. Sitting down in front of an average Netflix series is unlikely to change behavior for the better, but sitting down and reading content on finance and the state of the economy may.

Of course, type of content matters, which is why consuming from the general news sources will do very little other than give a false sense of security when things are "going well", and a greater sense of fear and lack of agency when they inevitably fall apart. There is a dishonesty in mass media and that has to do with their own incentives, as conglomerates who are invested in certain outcomes themselves.

Sure, I have STEEM as one of my back up plans which could very well become my main plan if things go according to my personal beliefs, but being on Steem has also opened me up to other factors in the world. The economic collapse is coming and while there will be some people who would call this alarmist, it isn't a factor of if, it is always when. Economic collapse is always coming.

The only way to really benefit from it is if one has resource availability when it happens, and while that might be money in the bank for some people, others might see that in itself as a risk factor to be avoided. People have to consider their own acceptance of and openness to risk exposure themselves, something that we have largely outourced to governments to manage, and they are increasingly failing to do so as the flow of money bypasses their hands, but fills their pockets.

Steem by design "forces" people to consider economics, finance, value, governance and of course social factors that influence them all. The potential for lessons we can learn and the skills we can develop that allow us to better understand and act on what we can control, what we can influence and what we cannot affect is large. Even if we only apply a little of what we have developed to our lives, we are better off for it.

Think about how many people have got into trading (me being one) without having any starting knowledge or capital. How many have been able to add some kind of additional revenue stream that could be significantly higher in the future by leveraging their skills. The changes that people could have made in their every day lives based on Steem experience of some kind could have alone changed their future position significantly. Small steps matter.

This is why I try and write for LEO each day as it gives me the space and a blank canvas to explore my life from a financial position, to consider my trading decisions and interact with people who are in their own boats, but sailing on the same waters.

An economic collapse is coming that is going to make waves in the markets with uncertainty that will catch many off guard. There will be those who struggle to shore and those who drown at sea. There will also be those who have prepared themselves to sail despite the conditions.

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Steem encourages me to keep disrupting the mental waters.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]