How has Steem impacted my life - More than I expected

I've seen quite a few people writing about How Steem has impacted their life recently and was wondering what it was all about. Since I've been a busy this week managing the contest run by @steemitworldmap that I haven't had time to check it out. That's till this morning, I found out it's an initiative by @theycallmedan, and it finishes tomorrow!!!

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I joined Steemit in June 2017, a year after I started blogging on Wordpress. I always think, if I had found out about Steemit when I started to blog, my Steemit journey would be very different to where I am now, and the impact on my life would be a lot bigger. Who knows, I might even be an orca by now! Anyway, let's see how Steem has impacted the life of a wannabe quadrable dolphin.

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FAILING TO BECOME A LADY OF LEISURE

When I stopped working and moved to Taiwan nearly four years, the plan for my new career was to become a lady of leisure. That was fine for a year or so until Steem stumbled into my life (or did I stumble onto it?). My life was totally consumed by Steem work. In addition to my other social media which I was slowly neglecting, I was managing my own blog on Steemit. Not one to shit post or do single image posts - nothing wrong with that if you're a great photographer which I'm not, see below... I strived to churn out decent content every day and spent nearly all my time in front of the computer. One day, I looked at myself in the mirror after the shower and thought I was pregnant. That's because I've been sitting down so much!

I also curate for the Steemitworldmap and OCD and that took up a considerable amount of time every day. If you're a curator you'll know what I mean. If not, next time when you're curated, drop a thank you to the curator, they work hard to support you.

Anyway, Steem gradually consumed my life before I knew it. As much as I love this new Steem life, I needed to control it and not let it control me. I learnt to not force myself to post everyday if I couldn't manage it. The Steemitworldmap got more curators, and the OCD curation went into hiatus. I started to get more of a life back.

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO

And no, I don't mean Steem has turned me into a photographer. Before blogging on Steemit, I was just writing about my travels around the world. Documenting them to share with friends and any stranger who was interested, and for myself in case I enter la la la land when I grow old. On Steemit, I blog about non travel posts, so I'm always taking random photos when I go out. I'm watching and learning from the many great photographers on Steemit, improving my photography skills little by little, step by step. These people probably don't know they have made an impact on me.

In my quest to create more varied content, I also started vlogging but am still very crap at it. Looking at my videos, I never smile when I speak and my editing skills are very poor. Had it not been for Steemit, I would have never thought about vlogging.

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THE VIRTUAL WORLD

Since joining Steemspeher I've been learning about blockchain and cryptocurrency. Previously cryptocurrency = Bitcoin. Now I know there's thousands of other cryptocurrencies around. Despite working in IT for many years, blockchain was a totally new ballgame. It hadn't made it to the corporate world when I was still working. I even dropped my chick flick novels and started to read about blockchain. Two and a bit years on, I'm still about one quarter way through.

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FRIENDS

This is without a doubt, the biggest impact Steemsphere has had on my life. If Steem belly up's tomorrow and I lose everything in my wallet I may shed a tear or two (I've conditioned myself not to fall in love with my Steem... yet), but I will still have a bunch of friends that I've made over the years. I had the pleasure of meeting some of these crazy people, and I'm sure we shall meet again one day in the not too distance future. There are others that I haven't met yet, and I hope we shall one day. Through their posts, our dialogue, and a postcard social experiment I started, my friends on Steem have broadened my horizon around the world. I have learnt so much about other countries which would not have been posssible otherwise.

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