Revel in the chaos of your life.
Whenever you complain, the universe gives you more reasons to complain.
When you are grateful, the universe gives you more reasons to be cheerful.
It is a lot easier to get into bad habits than it is to get into the good ones. It is easier to complain but a lot harder to not complain and be cheerful.
When you make a habit out of complaining, you unconsciously get yourself into a viscous cycle of bad fortunes and complaints, complaints and bad fortunes and wheels keep spinning.
This is so because, when you decide to complain, you are shutting down your problem solving abilities and instead choose to draw pity and sympathy to yourself, and what good does that usually do? None.
As a man, whenever you complain, your balls shrink a bit and you become less of yourself. What would life be without challenges, without obstacles to conquer?
That would be a bland tasteless life. A life without content, a life that wouldn't be worth remembering and talked about.
Life challenges are like salt. Take a pinch into your mouth and it stings and burns, but put a spoonful into your food and it comes alive tastefully.
Your life challenges enrich you with wisdom, they give you the fortitude and experience to go into much tougher battleground.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
You say a silent prayer everyday, you pray for success and good fortune, you pray for good health, long life, peace and prosperity.
Sustainable success doesn't come without the pain of dedication and discipline.
Good health doesn't come without the pain of good diet and exercise.
There can't be peace, if there wasn't originally war, and peace cannot be maintained if the scars of war aren't kept fresh to remind of the importance of peace.
-------------------------------
You often pray for success and get frustrated that it isn't forthcoming.
What if the current chaos in your life is the route designed for your success?
Why are you frustrated, instead of embracing it?
OBSTACLE IS THE WAY.
Sometimes you think about your life and you are certain that the universe hates you, because why always you?
But, is your situation worse than that of Job in the bible?
Is it worse than that of Nelson Mandela, who spent 23 years of his life behind bars because he was fighting for his people of South Africa?
Is it worse than that of Viktor Frankl?
Viktor Frankl is a psychiatrist that survived the Holocaust that claimed the lives of 6 Million German Jews.
He witnessed the lowest of the lows, the base animal instinct level of the human species.
He saw people lose their minds, lose their dignity, lose everything that makes them humans, before ultimately succumbing to the escape of death.
Amidst all these, Frankl had a reason to go on everyday, tending to other inmates, treating, counseling and encouraging them.
He never gave up, he never complained.
He survived the Holocaust, and wrote a bestseller thereafter "Man's search for meaning". A book that has become a symbol of hope, an inspiration to anybody feeling stuck in life.
I respect people who just mutter "it is well" when they are facing their demons, instead of complaining.
Complaining opens you up to influx of bad, negative energy, it is a trap. Don't do it and don't accept it either.
There are obstacles at every stage in our lives, when you conquer this one, bigger ones await.
The quicker/slower you conquer the current level, the quicker/slower you go onto the next level.
Obstacles don't go away, they exist for as long as you exist, so exist and deal with them anyways.
You have a 10 million naira obstacle.
Another person has 5 million naira obstacle.
Another has 1 million naira obstacle.
Another person has accomodation obstacle.
Another person just wants something to eat.
Another person is in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Another person has a terminal illness and has been told they have 3 months to live.
Are you unlucky or ungrateful?
Calm seas don't make good sailors
Don't complain, be positive.
This Too Shall Pass
Problems Test Your Resolve
*You don't know how strong you can be until you being strong becomes the only option*.
I am sure we all have been in those kind of situations that felt like the end of the world, that felt like our breath was being taken away. I am sure we all have, but years later, here we still are, still finding reasons to laugh.
Whenever I talk about this particular topic, I usually always think back to a particular incident that gave me one of the biggest scares of my life.
A friend of mine passed out in my house, right in front of me, because certain situation she had banked on ultimately flopped. I was so terrified that I started praying, because I feared the worst had happened. Is she dead? How do I explain that she just collapsed and died?
Well, lucky for me, she didn't die. In fact, during my prayers and vigorously shaking her, she came to (I don't think it was the prayers) and started crying. Damn, all I could do was pacify her and tell her it was gonna be okay.
The truth is, this situation wasn't actually a life and death situation. It was one which she still had a choice and a say in, but she had so much banked on a particular outcome, that she had become very comfortable in the idea of the outcome and any other thing would be a disaster.
In hindsight though, it is easy to think this was such an insignificant thing to worry about, but at that point in time, her whole world was crashing.
**We Suffer More In Imagination Than In Reality**
My friend's situation gives credit to the thought that the human mind has a way of magnifying every negative situation we find ourselves in and also has a way of making the positive situation seem common and ordinary.
This is why I usually find solace in the philosophy of the ancient stoics. Seneca said "we are more often frightened than hurt; and suffer more from imagination than reality". Now look at that.
One of the things I said to pacify my friend was "it may hurt now, but in 6 months time, you won't even remember this happened". It sounded patronizing when I said it, but in about a year's time, I reminded her about it and we had a good laugh.
Now, it is something to laugh about, but back then, when she was up to her eyes in fright, all she wanted to do was have the ground swallow her whole.
**We Really Suffer More In Our Minds**
I had an accomodation problems one time, I couldn't pay my rent and I was on the brink of eviction. Although it hurt me that I was about to become homeless, but the dread more was about my neighbors seeing my properties being dragged out of my house, or even friends and family finding out that I was so broke that I couldn't afford my rent.
You see, these situations were just harmless thoughts of other people. I mean harmless because what they think isn't gonna cause me any physical discomforts, and in the end, it would be them expending more energy than. But, I spend time, worrying about it, making it more tangible than it should be and at the end of the day, it becomes a big deal.
In this situation, I was first of all worried that my word (to pay my rent at a so date) would amount to nothing, because I couldn't keep my word(honor/ego). Then I became more worried that image with my neighbors is going to be jeopardized (my ego), then my image (ego) with friends and family.
*Ego is an enemy, conquer it, do not pay mind to what people may think or say, people always say something, so think about solutions to your problems instead of what people may say.*
There is an adage in my tribe that translates to "a problem that has no existing solution would have one created for it". Imagine imbibing such tenacious mindset, a mindset of never giving up and giving in to your situation.
The thing is, our problems can not stop the movement of time, because no human problem is actually that important/signicant. And as long as time keeps passing, our problems would have to blend in with the program and either became less of a problem, or a solution meets it halfway.
Sometimes, when faced with the toughest situation of your life yet, solution may come in varying forms.
Sometimes you just have to wait it out, sometimes you just have to talk to a friend, other times its about making a difficult decision. But, no problem is too big to stop time, although it may stop your own time, if terminal illness is the problem.
*So, when it feels like there's no help in sight and you are freaking out, always remember, this too shall pass.*
Problem Solving Is The Purpose Of Life
Man is a designated problem solver, so, your problems can never go away. The more you solve problems, the more you create problems.
Putting it into perspective, fixing breakfast is solving a problem, making out time for that meeting with your tailor is solving a problem, going to the butcher's market is solving a problem.
With every single decision you make in your life, you are creating a new problem by solving old ones. When you go to meet your tailor, you have solved the problem of not having that dress you love and have indeed created a problem of having to pay a certain amount for it, having to iron it, and having to get it washed after wearing it.
It all flies past you because you haven't paused for a moment to think about it. Problem solving is what we live for.
If you happen to get everything you ever wanted right now, chances are high that you are gonna fall into depression in a couple of months, because then, your life becomes purposeless.
We keep sane by chasing purpose, thus solving problems. It doesn't matter if that purpose serves any true benefit to us or the universe in the grand scheme of things, as long as it is the reason we wake up in the morning and start strategizing.
Someone out there is aiming to have the biggest biceps in the world. Someone else may be aiming to have the most muscular neck. These things do not matter in the grand scheme of things, but they are goals and purposes that keep these people going.
No Purpose Is Useless
I believe that every single thing happening right now in our lives and in life generally serves to maintain a balance. There are seemingly very important goals and purposes like being a Doctor, a police officer, a fireman because these vocations actually serve a tangible purposes in the society.
Then there are seemingly some unimportant purposes that may not have any true benefit like being a bodybuilder, a sprinter, a footballer. I mean, the human civilization can manage without these things, but yet, they are such important fields of the human society. But why?
While some purposes sustain life, others nourish the soul and makes life more colorful and worth living.
Imagine what it'd feel like if after being in close proximity with blood, death and agony all day, the doctor has no place to unwind and clear his mind of all the pressure from work.
Imagine not having to go to the gym, not having to go watch your favorite music band, not going to watch your favorite sport? Life would be bland and uninteresting.
Personal Purposes Create Solutions To Inexistent Problems.
Sometimes, we get some crazy ideas spring to our minds, these ideas aren't already existing in the world, but we can already imagine it in the world, working to ease off a certain human inconvenience, and just like that, something comes to life and gets generally adopted.
I imagine when Mark Zuckerberg was designing Facebook, he just wanted to create something where people can connect with other, I mean, mostly long and short distanced friendship. It served that purpose almost instantly after it's inception but it has become even much more than that.
It has become a means of information dissemination, keeping in touch with friends and loved ones and also a means of conducting business as well as advertising products. I doubt Mark intended all these for Facebook when he started out.
Just Breathe & Create Something
Haven't you seen people making money and fame from doing the stupidest things and you say to yourself "I could do that, I have even thought about that". Yeah?
The difference between you and these people is, they have the guts to let the thoughts in their head materialize into tangibles.
Sometimes, an idea comes to us and we visualize ourselves carrying out these ideas and we think we are too big to be found in that situation. We think certain things are too lowly for us, then we see those same ideas raising people into a far better position than we currently are, and we feel like shit afterwards.
Just breath and create. The idea behind this piece is to let you know that, problems don't go away, we are just perpetual solution machines, we humans. So, in order for your current problem not to weigh on you too much, create a solution, the solution may not help you, but it can help others.
I have been thinking of creating a YouTube channel, but I haven't figured out what content to create yet. This piece is also to motivate myself to let go of ego and just push on. Answers are out there.
To Be A Man.
I have recently stumbled upon a teacher that opened my eyes to the errors of my old ways. He is an all rounder, a well read gentleman, versed in all things masculinity and men's health.
He usually talks about how men who refuse to build their masculine frame are always found wanting in the things of life. Relationship, money and life in general.
His teachings opened my eyes on the flaws of my past, how I had on many occasions abandoned my purpose as a man and made a woman the center of my world and my priority. Before I stumbled upon this teacher, I could swear that the women were the problem, I could swear that I did everything I had to do, I could swear it was never my fault, none of it ever was, from the looks of things.
Well, imagine how wrong I was, of course the problem was me. The interesting is, during my period of blaming, I never saw things from the perspective that this my new teacher had opened my eyes to.
See, women are followers, they are meant to be led, they dont have it in their capacity to be leaders or co-leaders. You are supposed to lead while they follow and this is where building your frame as a man comes into play.
Once you have it all worked out, you have every screw of your life pieced together, a woman is then supposed to come and slot in. Dont get it twisted, they arent coming in to complete you, they arent coming in to be the final piece of your puzzle, they are coming in to marvel at what you have built, and then work towards being a lifelong part of that which you have built.
Young men of this generation always get it confused, chasing after women and getting their lives all tangled up, instead of chasing their purpose and building themselves up. This is where I have found myself for most of my life as an adult male.
I didnt understand how it was supposed to work, because I had no guidance, thus I didn't know much about masculinity and what is required. Below are some of the things I have learnt from personal experience in corroboration with what this teacher has taught me.
1. A young man is supposed to focus on himself, leave women and relationship alone. He is focusing on building his mental frame by reading widely and consuming lots of content on masculinity, so as to know what ought to be and whats not ought to be when he comes of age for women.
He is supposed to focus on building his finances and material holdings, so as to have some material value as a man. This gives him a lifelong focus to continue working on and also provide him with the material resources to provide for a woman and his offspring when the time becomes right.
2. A man should always aim to marry a virgin, or at least, a woman who hasn't been tainted beyond repair. Marrying a virgin or a woman with very few body counts means you are marrying a woman who hasn't been messed up psychologically by her experiences with those other men.
Chances are high that a woman with more than 5 body counts has had an abortion at least once. Chances are also high that such women would have been heartbroken and had gotten emotionally depressed by at least two men in her life, thus stiffening her up emotionally and psychologically.
Chances are also high that this woman would have been penetrated by different sizes of penises and would have indulged in some crazy sexual activities. Do you understand where I am heading to? Do you understand what you would be getting yourself into?
If you aren't, let me make it clear to you. You would be getting yourself tangled with a war veteran whose private places and emotions have seen more wars and excitement than you can possibly compete with. So, you have a woman who would constantly and secretly compare you with men in her past and sometimes she'd wish she could experience some of those times again. All these, while you are wearing yourself out, working towards making her happy. Desist.
3. Having talked about marrying a virgin, a man should always aim to date or marry a woman 5 years or more younger than he is. This can not be overemphasized and many men make this mistake including myself.
One of the reasons this is important to note is, women age quicker than men physiologically, thus, marrying a woman a year or two years younger than yourself physiologically is a bad idea in the long run, because men age like wine while women age like milk. A man in his 50s still has his best life ahead of him, while a woman in her 50s already has her best years behind her.
Another reason for this point is, a woman naturally looks up to and follow the lead of a stronger and older figure; male figure. So, you don't want to marry/date a woman who is in close proximity with you in terms of age.
You are always gonna be at wars of superiority, she can't submit totally if she thinks both of you are age mates.
4. Your In-laws aren't your relatives. I cant lie, the first time I heard this, I couldn't wrap my brain around it because it made little logical sense to me at the time, that's because logical doesn't explain everything. Sometimes while you are trying to explain everything using logic as an apparatus, real life experience comes along and kicks you in the balls.
Take heed, your in-laws aren't your relatives. If you are married, keep your business as far away as possible from them, make sure nothing brings them to your place unannounced and nothing happening in your household spills over to them.
...to be continued.
You Need Yourself More.
**Hugging The Status Quo**
People go through life constantly scared of change, hugging the status quo, because even though it is painful, it is familiar and navigable to them.
The fright of untangling from that usual feeling, of feeling something else, knowing something else, stepping away makes people prefer to stick it out in a toxic environment and hope it gets better someday.
Yeah, but it usually never does get better. Indirectly, because of that fear of the unknown, because of your cowardice, you become an eternal peacemaker, even on occasions where you're at the receiving end of hurt.
I think this situation is usually reinforced when you don't know your self worth, when you have a scarcity mindset instead of an abundance mindset.
Having an abundance mindset usually just makes everything so much better, makes every situation easy to handle because first, you know your self worth, so once you smell bullshit and any slight disrespect, you are cutting ties because there are options available for you.
When scarcity mindset is what you got and how you operate, you are usually scared out of your shit when you perceive change incoming, you start to panic, damn, now what am I gonna do, where am I gonna go?
Once your panic kicks in, you swing into action, you start looking for how to save the situation and stop the impending change. You compromise, sacrifice your honor and self respect.
It doesn't get any better from here because just like a shark smells blood and attacks, your abuser won't stop and will never respect you as long you are still bleeding respect and pride.
To regain your respect, you need to plug where you have been bleeding from. Many times, this involves walking away, standing up for yourself, saying no. It usually involves making hard decisions, no matter what you think you stand to lose.
Because, by hanging on, you are ultimately going to lose those things anyway, probably in a much more dramatic circumstance, after having lost every ounce of respect you got.
**Master The Art Of Being Emotionally Independent.**
We all need one another, that's a given but before you go needing another human being, you need to make sure that when the chips are down, that you can manage on your own.
Many times, what usually hurt us more during breakups aren't really the usefulness of those people in our lives which we no longer have access to, but the memories and thus emotional attachment we had created with those people.
This happens because we invariably lose ourselves in our relationships, we forget what it is like to be us, to be our individual selves. So, when breakup happens, we start struggling to find our path again, to realign ourselves to our individuality and this is often hard. It's just like a junkie going through withdrawal syndrome.
We lose ourselves in relationships because we go into them way too early, we fail to learn ourselves, grow and master ourselves, then we go into relationships and start growing our collective selves instead of our individual selves.
In other words, it is paramount for an individual to know themselves. This involves a lot of personality building. Building your mental fortitude by reading good books, meditating, journaling. Building your finances, building your body through fitness exercise.
Doing all these and more, helps you stay in tune with yourself, helps you remain physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically assured.
**Our Neediness Is Our Problem**
When you have yourself all sorted out, it means wherever you are going to, you are going with certain standard, it means whatever you are getting into, neither you or the other party would be settling for less than they deserve.
This ensures there is little neediness from both parties in the relationship. Less neediness, translates to less friction and drama, which ultimately translates to a healthy, level headed relationship.
Imagine getting into a thing with a guy who gambles, it doesn't go down well with you, you need him to stop but it's difficult for him and you in turn can't leave him because, aside his gambling, he "completes" you, he "takes" care of you.
You are settling because you don't have standards, and now you have become needy. The neediness is going to be a cancer to the future of your relationship.
I am not in any way saying that any one relationship can be perfect when people do or don't do certain things, but it becomes more enjoyable, less tedious and goal oriented when you go into it with the right tools and intentions.
How Did You Know What You Were Supposed To Do?
**A Seed Of Your Environment**
Every human was born without any preconceived ideas or predetermined goals, in effect, a tabula rasa.
At first, all we cared about was food, we just wanted to eat and stay alive. Then through social interactions, both from our parents and our peers, we begin to form likes and dislikes, preferences of things in our immediate environment.
I would like to say that many of these preferences are natural and intuitive, but then the nature nurture argument becomes valid. Some of our life preferences were born out of what we saw others like and dislike, so we were actually taught to like or dislike such things.
On the other hand, some of our preferences, we can't fathom how they came to be.
How do you explain a toddler's love for animals? How do you also explain a toddler's dread for animals?
**Childhood Passion Taking Shape**
When I was growing up, I never really liked being out and about. I had friends, dating back from when I was as little as I can remember, but there is a joy that being in isolation gave me. So, I hung out and played a lot less than the average kid, and rather spent my time alone, doing things that really appealed to me.
Like observing ants, how they hunted, killed and dragged their food back to their base. I loved observing lizards, how they interacted, how the males fought over territories, how they mate, how the females dig up the earth to lay their eggs, etc.
I also loved growing things, animals and plants alike. We had pigeons, guinea pigs and chickens and I treated them like wonders of world, because I would watch them all day.
It is safe to say that I liked paying attention to how the world operated, I liked to know causes and effects, actions and reactions up close. But above all, I loved growing and taking care of things.
My love for animals as a very young kid remained with me as an adult and I had tried my hands in running a livestock farm and I found out that I was absolutely good at it. I bought 100 day old chicks and took care of them to maturity and none of them died or got sick. I watched over them like a mother hen, with so much love and curiosity. (I love livestock farming)
My love for living things of the lower animal classes grew towards humans too and I realized that I became empathetic towards the suffering of others and I try as much as I could to listen to them and profer opinions and suggestions and sometimes actionable solutions.
I may be carrying a backpack full of worries and personal problems, but I usually get a sense of relief and fulfilment when somebody going through their own issues get a bit of respite because of me.
I had served as a solver of problems to my peers so much that I thought I might do well as a guidance and counselor or a psychiatrist if I ever gave it a serious thought and I'd be passionate and would absolutely love it. (I could become a shrink).
So far, everything I seem to be passionate about and would love to spend my adult life doing, have been with me since I was a kid, all of them quite natural, instinctive and intuitive, except for one that I haven't mentioned.
While growing up, the eldest of my brothers was a bodybuilder, it wasn't anything fancy, but he had the basic equipment at out backyard and he was really bulky. Watching him workout and seeing him look so massive and intimidating made him look so powerful and I wanted to feel some of that power too.
So, at 18 I started working out and by 20, I was in charge of the gym at the backyard because my brother had moved out and moved on with life.
Soon, my gym grew and attracted all kinds of young folks looking to build their body, and in no time, I became something of a neighborhood Gym Instructor.
I stepped out of my zone and worked as an instructor in a modern gym, and then moved on to club security.
The job of being accountable for people's safety at the club didn't particular appeal to me, although the experience and exposure was fun but being responsible for people's muscle growth and how great they felt about themselves made me feel like I was doing something important, because hey, health is wealth.
Needless to say that I also became extremely passionate about bodybuilding and also particular about helping people grow in the gym.
**Looking At The Big Picture In Retrospect**
In case you aren't following, this is me adding, owning a Fitness establishment to the list of things I would love to build, which also includes owning a large livestock farm and also being a part-time shrink. Things I absolutely love.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the direction my life has taken and I feel unfulfilled, it feels that I have taken more than I have given. I know I have a lot to give to the world, I know the capabilities within my capacity, and I am sure I haven't given enough, I feel that what I have taken(have been given) have far outweighed what I have given.
Now, this may be in the form of material, earthly gifts from friends and family, it may also be in the form of gift and talent from the universe to me. In other words, to whom much is given, much is expected and I know I have fallen short in terms of the gifts I have been given.
Now, this has led me into wanting to start a humanitarian service and a blog for personal development. I know I have a gift to give and I have just found out where I'm going to start.
Some of us go through life, just working, earning and living, without doing things for the greater good of mankind or even anyone for that matter.
At this point in my life, everything I am doing is just a means to an end, an end that is building a business dynasty which would revolve around Agriculture & Fitness
What about you?
Is Depression Real?
Just as many negative human habits are addictive, being in a depressed mood has that level of addictiveness too.
Some people who are "depressed", find it hard to seek help and reject it when it is presented to them.
***Why*****?**
Because they have become addicted to the attention their situation gets them and they tend to enjoy that "Special attention". Getting cure means they would have to relinquish that power, which sadly is the only thing going for them.
Many "depressed" people hardly want to look beyond their anguish. Like, hey look, that's a cure for what you have right there on the floor close to your feet...No, leave me alone, I am too depressed to turn my neck. The world hates me!
If you have a depressed person as a friend or family, all you can give them is your patience and just hope they can help you help themselves.
**I WAS ONCE THERE.**
Fortunately for me, I wasn't there long enough to start romanticizing what I was going through, like most people battling "depression" do now. But for the brief moment that I was there, it was as intense as it comes.
I had episodes where it would have been better to not exist at all than to go through what I was going through. I harmed myself whenever I couldn't contain the pain and sadness that was brewing within me.
One thing I find different from my own "depression" ordeal was, I could pinpoint what was wrong with me, it was tangible and I needed help to change it. Help in the form of changing of environment, physically getting away from the people I was with, the people causing me to hate myself and my existence.
This was it, my cause of "depression" had a face, a name and energy, if I could get far away, I would no longer be depressed. Then I encounter friends who claim they are depressed, I try to talk it through with them, get to know what actually was going on, but nada.
In the case of a particular friend of mine, it was all about the intangibles and it did my head in. I mean why do you think you are depressed? And they go, I don't know, the world hates me, my family aren't supportive, that friend was rude to me.
Hot damn! I am not trying to undermine what true depression is. But is everybody claiming to be depressed actually depressed? Why are people eager to be bestowed that title so bad?
**HORMONES & THE LITTLE THINGS.**
Many times, "depression" doesn't manifest from thin air, sometimes when the triggers are intangibles, hard to lay hands on kind of things, then maybe our lifestyle is the reason why we feel so low and unmotivated all the time.
I mean, the human body is an actual machine, everything has to function properly for everything to function properly. You get the drift?
*Why do women get mood swings and unstable personality when their period is on? Hormones.*
*Why do some pregnant women have such an unstable mood, sense of taste and are generally insufferable through out their pregnancy cycle? Hormones yeah?*
Well, if hormones play such big parts in mood stabilization and proper function of our person, what has "unstabled" these hormones? Diet? Stress? Alcohol? Poor lifestyle? News?
Well, is it that simple? Many times, yes. The thing is, many gigantic problems we encounter have their solutions embedded in their commonest of places, that we either fail to recognize them or dismiss them as impossible panacea when we are pointed in their direction.
***Melatonin:*** This is a hormone released by the human brain that regulates our natural sleep pattern.
What usually happens when we don't get a goodnight sleep? We become irritable during the day.
What disrupts this hormone? Blue light after dusk (Use of Phones, TV and Laptops), Diet. So, then lifestyle. Yeah.
***Serotonin:*** This is another hormone secreted by the body which helps regulate the general mood functions of the body. Sleep, happiness, sadness and even sex drive are all linked to this hormone and when you feel low and sad for no good reason, chances are that your levels of serotonin is pretty low.
What lowers the serotonin levels? Lack of exposure to sunlight (Vitamin D deficiency), lack of exercise, poor diet. So, lifestyle again? Yes.
*You remember how terrible you felt those times you spent day indoors doing whatever and not seeing sunlight?*
*You remember how great you usually feel when you are sweating out in the gym? See where I am going?*
If there are factual links and relationship between low levels of these hormones and depression, why aren't there cure for depression already? I guess that would put psychiatrist out of job right?
*Hell yeah, I am a conspiracy theorist.*
I think depression is a big money making scheme for big Pharma Companies, just like obesity and diabetes. The more people are convinced that their "depression" can't be cured, but managed, the more money shrinks and pharma companies make.
Just like is the case with Diabetes and Obesity, which can be reversed naturally with diet and more active lifestyle. Ironically, Diabetes, Depression and Obesity are modern diseases.
Modern diseases that make these guys the most money and help them keep control.
To sell the idea that these diseases are untreatable but merely manageable, a lot of effort (most are subtle) go into brainwashing and hypnotizing you into believing that when you feel low, you are depressed.
When you buy into it, you begin to see your situation as a special case that needs special attention. The entertainment industry is a tool used to drive this hypnosis home.
Do you think depression is really a natural phenomenon or a man made tool for control?
Going Through Life Without A Plan.
**Deep Thoughts**
I have sat today, in deep meditation and reflection and I have realized that, you can't go through life without a plan.
Every single minute of your day, should be dedicated to something. Do you plan to rest from so time to so time? do you plan to go out? Etc etc.
We are always in motion, both mind and body and if you haven't instructed your mind and body on what the plans for the rest of the day are, you would ultimately gallop through the day being distracted by sound, pictures, whispers and your own thought.
Life, ironically is always viewed in big images, the big picture. Your accomplishments, your titles, your material possessions and so on. But life, life is about the little things. Yeah, life is how you sleep at night, how you wake up, what you do right after you wake up, what you do right after that and right after that.
Do you wake up and the only thoughts you have is the thoughts of retiring for the day? No in-betweens?
If your day has many blank in-betweens, then you end up being a vessel of other people's plans. Yes, because you have failed to plan and budget your time, other people are gonna steal it and use it to facilitate their own agenda, and you are gonna aid them, with a smile on your face.
When you have planned your time, you'd rarely allow people misuse it. Same is true when you have your mind occupied with productive thoughts, you'd hardly fall victim to negative influence, peer pressure and psychological coercion, because you already have a lot going on in your head.
**Being Influenced Without Knowing It.**
People are usually victims of their environment because either by choice or by chance, their environment is the only source of education and socialization they got, so they soak up as much as they can.
If you are a person of mind A by nature and you spend every passing day with 3 other people of mind B by nature/nurture, it's just a matter of time before your mind starts bending to initially a hybrid of A to ultimately full-blown B.
This writeup is about influence. About what influences you when you fail to influence yourself.
When you leave yourself exposed, you risk being influenced by forces stronger than your own. These forces may come with little doses of their drugs, giving you tiny droplets, one drop at a time, but overtime, over a long period of time, you become fully enclosed.
What energy are you exposing yourself to? Is it good energy? Close your eyes and meditate. Is this energy good for you or were you told to believe the energy is good for you.
**A Lone Time With Yourself Helps You Tune In.**
The human spirit is very strong, self policing and intuitive. When something isn't right, the alarm bell usually rings, but how loud is it, has to do with how much you have numbed it down.
Always spend time with yourself, nourish your soul with a few hours of deliberate solitude, meditate and reflect.
The more you spend these deliberate times of solitude, times of meditation and reflection, with yourself, the stronger your intuition gets.
A container can only be occupied by a single entity when it is totally empty, and a content can not be fully diluted if it is of the best quality.
Occupy your mind with contents of your own making and strengthen these contents with deliberate solitude, meditation and reflection.
Fix The Family
**As It Used To Be**
Families used to be close knit, with strong non-negotiable values. Boys were instilled with certain values to carry them into their journey of becoming men of value, and girls instilled with certain feminine values to prepare them also on their journey into womanhood.
Both genders are instilled with strong generic family values, so they can always recognize and acknowledge when they are deviating from the norm.
This dissemination of values from the family to the society at large translated to a healthy society. A society where everybody understood his/her roles and did their best to carry them out.
Family pride and honor was usually at stake.
With strong family values intact, navigating the society at large becomes quite a familiar journey, and in cases where you encounter problems, you always have your family/values (support system) to fall back to.
Something disrupted this cycle and adulterated the family system. Internet/industrial age/capitalism/America.
**Negative Flexibility**
Family roles started changing, started becoming more flexible for both parents and the children. New values with no proper foundation were born out of these changes and flexibilities.
To cope with new demands of living and earning, fathers had to work more, thus staying away from the home more, mothers were also tasked to contribute to the home income by also working, while also running the home.
The pressure to provide and also run the home becomes too tasking for the parents and the children were either forced to become adults and contribute more in taking care of themselves, or the job gets delegated to schools and nannies.
Creche bacame a thing and it blew up real quick. Toddlers below the age of 5 who are supposed to be under their mother's care 24/7 are passed on to strangers to cater to them.
Children spend the better parts of their formative years either in school or in the care of strangers (Nannies).
The best parents can give is the odd "family weekend" or family vacations.
These kids pick up so much values from everywhere else except the home, because the home has actually transformed into just a house. The home has become just a house where people just come back late at night after work, tired and worn out, sleep and then rush out again at dawn.
The rate of children growing up in this kind of family setup has increased tremendously over the years and this has left gaps in the personality shaping of the individuals in said family.
The rate at which good family values are transmitted into these kids and the society at large has as expected decreased tremendously also.
**Confusion Of Gender Roles**
The boy child is lost as to what his role is in the family and society, just as the female child is equally confused as to what values are required of her as a woman of virtue. Hell, virtue is hardly even a word these days.
The boy child is gradually brainwashed and convinced that it is okay to play the role of woman from time to time, and the girl child is also convinced that it is okay to play the role of a man.
Then you often hear statements like "getting in touch with your feminity", "a strong woman", "gender equality"
You hear words like sexism, sexist, feminism, misogyny way too often because there is now a battle of power between both sexes.
This is because the modern woman has lost her feminity (virtue), after having had a whiff of the male power and wants some of that power for keeps.
The modern man has lost his way (masculinity) because he got in touch with his "feminine side" and stayed too long. He seem to be in a constant battle to regain it. A battle to the death.
This whole clusterfuck is so glaring in the society today. The young generation are lashing out and acting wild, because they are confused. They haven't been given a proper manuscript, a solid blueprint on how to navigate through life. The family values have been eroded.
When these young folks, ill-prepared and less equipped go into the real world and are found wanting, they have no family/values (support system) to fall back to, so they devise means to keep up (crime and drug abuse) or the just give in, have mental breakdown and end up in institutions.
**Money Mill For The Modern Society**
When you think about it, this whole clusterfuck is kind of a profit machine for the society/government/powers that be.
The society's response to all of these is to build more prisons, more mental institutions, the pharmaceutical companies, more university courses that look into mental health, more psychologists, more personal development coaches.
These are the duties of the family on the micro level, ultimately delegated to the society in the macro level.
Who is benefitting from the status quo?
Splinterlands - My Ultimate Winning Team
It is so fascinating, to myself, especially how much I have grown on Splinterlands, in terms of gameplay and my choice of Monsters in such a short period of time playing the game. (Tired of telling y'all I started in July)
In this short period of time, the highest I have reached on the leaderboard is Silver III(couldn't go higher because of Power) and along the line, I have combined some of the deadliest and lethal Monsters for someone still stuck at Bronze levels.
I like sticking to the same lineup for every battle because whether you believe it or not, I have kinda grown a fondness for some of the Monsters(imagine that). But you know sometimes, the opponent and Manna cap play big roles in your team selection. I hate when I have prepared to battle it out against Melee monsters and my opponent surprises me with a magic lineup with Phantom Of The Abyss leading the charge or I get the unpleasant surprise of battling against Kron. Shit!!
In my ransacking, trying to get some of the best Monsters within my renting budget, I encountered some of the coolest and deadliest Monsters on the arena and I make sure they are part of my cards every time, no matter what they cost in rent.
Currently, if the Mana cap is at least 22, I am using my preferred lineup, regardless of who I am facing.
**Drake Of Arnak**
I am using Drake because some of my preferred Monsters are of the Dragon Splinter but that is not the only reason though. Drake gives my team that one extra layer of shield so even when I come up against the same monsters with the same speed and they attack first, my Monsters still get to be alive for a comeback. I will show you what I mean below.
**Robo-Dragon Knight**
Shiii!! The Dragon Knight. I call him the Boss because he just exudes "bad ass" and "kickass" at the same time.
The Boss is fully equipped for all kinds of opponents which is one of the reasons I use it regardless of whom I am battling. It has both defense and offense abundantly. With 3 Speed and 3 Melee attack, the Boss can attack both fast and hard. Then his defense is his biggest flex which also gives those at the back enough time to do some serious damage to the opposition backline.
The Boss has the Divine shield, Void (against magic), 9 Health, and 8 Shield. That is a pretty damn tank if you ask me.
**Dragon Jumper**
I love me some opportunistic Monsters and this guy and Serpentine Spy are my favorites. They are both aesthetically pleasing, fast and ruthless in battle. I think I fell in love with it mostly because it reminds me of the movie "how to train your dragon".
With 5 speed and 3 Melee attack, the Jumper rarely misses any attack, so when he attacks he either takes out the other monsters or half their health.
Sometimes I just go into battle with The Dragon Knight and The Jumper and I am sure of victory, that's how much confidence they give me. Also my longest winning streak has come while using them.
**Serpentine Spy**
One of the sneaky bastards I hated encountering in battle when I first started out but I absolutely love having on my team.
When I use Drake, I usually choose the Fire Splinter when prompted, just because of this beautiful Monster. This allows me to have two very fast opportunistic Monsters on my team. And because his health is just 1 and the chances of it being killed after one attack is high, I use Drake to protect it. This guarantees at least two to three attacks from it before it is ultimately taken out.
When I come with this lineup, I come prepared, unless I am battling against Mylor Crowling, then it becomes a bit complicated, but I still fancy my chances.
In case you have encountered and been whooped by this lineup severally, know now that it is me, and I am not sorry. LOL
If I have more Manna though I add some more range attack behind for variety, but this is very much it though.
[Here is a link to one of my battles with this team](https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_25efbb2c96982a0723466037da05ea56&ref=butherfly87)
The Rich Are Getting Richer In Life...and on Splinterlands.
It has been such a rush on Splinterlands and the speed at which everything is moving has been overwhelming, I won't lie.
First and foremost, I have had such a wonderful gaming experience and if it didn't have anything to do with money in the first place then I might not have had any single thing to complain about because I am absolutely loving it so far. But, since there is money involved, emotion is definitely going to be involved too.
It has been roughly 8 weeks and I already feel like a veteran of the game and I haven't even used Yodin Zaku and The Llama yet. Hahaha. I totally love and hate those two and I can't wait to let my opponents know what I mean.
Well well, for about a week now though, the rush has slowed down for me, not because my love for the game has died down, far from it, far from it. I am sure we all have been enjoying the spike in the prices of everything we own (Cards & DEC).
I understand that it is still early stages for the game and the developers are constantly tweaking and fixing loopholes, so even if I scratch my head in disappointment today, I could still nod it in excitement tomorrow, so it's not all that bad.
Cost Of Card Rentals.
At the moment, I am finding it difficult to keep up with the cost of renting decent cards in the market. I know, what's the alternative right? I can't afford to buy those cards, but renting is kinda becoming unaffordable too.
During my first couple of weeks playing the game, I saw myself pushing high up the power ranking because the cost of renting good cards was pretty affordable for me.
With a few bucks and some good game strategy, I got myself up at Silver III level. Some of the cards I used to reach this feat were Oaken Behemoth, Dragon Jumper, Robo-Dragon Knight, Mylor Crowling. As of 3 weeks ago, I got all these together for 7 days rent, under $6 total. But right now, Level 1 Oaken Behomoth alone, costs approximately $6 for a week in rent.
That means, if my goal is to move up to at least the Silver I level, I could spend around $40 in rent. Would it be a good financial risk? Could I make enough in DEC and end of the season rewards to cover that investment?
The renting system was introduced to help as an affordable alternative to outright buying of these expensive cards, but renting in itself is becoming an expensive venture.
This whole scenario is good news for those who have lots of cards in the rental market, in other words, those who started early. For those still new in the game and are trying to come up, the price of renting these cards could make you decide to stick it out in the Bronze levels. But what would be the point of playing and not making progress? The DEC reward from battles at this level is almost insignificant, so there would be just little financial reward to playing the game.
Buying Quest Potion With DEC
Boy, this really sucks ass. I woke up one morning and realised I could no longer buy the quest potion with my Game CREDITS. I understand that the idea behind this is to stop some rich folks with multiple accounts from milking the system and printing daily DECS and Cards for themselves but man! I am not sure this is it.
It would make sense if at least we could get those quest potions randomly from completing daily quests like we get those other potions. I mean, buying the quest potion with 750 DEC at the current price which translates to around $6, what's to guarantee that you would be getting anything close to a dollar in those chests?
I think the developers could come up with a more suitable alternative for the daily quest potion, say $2 for the potion and the chest contents could be just DEC and maybe a refill of the Dark Energy Capture Rate. What do you think?
Since the new update on the Quest Potion purchase, I no longer look forward to completing the daily Quests. I just battle away and rack up on those tiny DEC and wait for the season to end so I'd restrategize.
*I am currently at 9K power(Bronze I, what cost-effective cards could I rent (at least 4) that could shoot me up to the Bronze II level. Anyone? Please!*
Arsenal - A Never Ending Transition
It's a bit of a dilemma and sometimes I feel pity for whoever finds himself as the coach of Arsenal. From the last days of Arsenal Wenger to the unpleasant stint of Unai Emery to Freddie and now to Arteta, there doesn't seem to be any obvious sign of growth or improvement on the squad and general team play.
At a time as this, when football is more competitive than ever, with teams winning now and also building for the future concurrently, Arsenal is unfortunately stuck in transition for the foreseeable future.
It doesn't help that the owners aren't really football people, they aren't emotionally invested in it as let's say the owners of the other top English teams, like Chelsea and Manchester United.
WHAT IS MISSING?
When you compare the current Arsenal squad with that of their rivals, talent-wise, they aren't so far off. So what exactly is the problem? One of the main problems is Mentality!
Ever since Arsenal went into a rebuilding phase after moving to the Emirates, they seem to have lost their winning mentality, their psychological edge.
Part of it had to do with losing their best players to domestic rival teams, who go on to win the League and other trophies with their new teams.
This is a big deal. Every physical battle is first fought in the mind before the actual battle. When your domestic rival can easily poach your best players, then they have defeated you psychologically and would go on to dominate you in actual battle.
One of the mistakes Arsenal made and kept making was selling their best players to their domestic rivals. This eroded every winner mentality the players had and in more ways than one, made players within the clubs see themselves as below par. Psychology plays a big role in every success we attain in life.
Look at it this way, the thought of Arsenal trying to poach Harry Kane from Tottenham would sound embarrassingly funny and ridiculous because, for starters, the player wouldn't want to come because Arsenal doesn't present any pull in terms of ambition. And the club wouldn't even consider selling because, well they wouldn't want to be the ones helping to Kickstart an Arsenal revival.
That's how far off Arsenal has fallen in terms of status. Not long ago, they still had this pull and almost nicked Suarez from Liverpool, if they didn't go ahead and act like total crack heads with the 40,000,000 + 1 bullshit.
Liverpool was still in their own rebuilding phase, Suarez wanted to leave and they would have sold to Arsenal if a good offer had come in. Now, do you see Arsenal pricing any of Liverpool's best players? The club wouldn't need to respond, the player in question would laugh Arsenal off the park.
HOW ARE THEY GOING TO STOP TRANSITIONING AND FINALLY REACH THEIR DESTINATION?
I said that the Arsenal team is not that far off from the rest and I wasn't playing. The problem with the team is the mentality within the club and the squad. Just a few details separate Chelsea and Arsenal, quality-wise. Chelsea is already used to winning, Arsenal is still trying to find that monster mentality.
Before Tuchel came in, the Chelsea players didn't feel they could do it, they knew they were Chelsea but they didn't have the belief of champions and it showed in the way they played. Even this Arsenal team completely dominated them but then Tuchel came in and the mentality changed. Chelsea became monsters again, with the same players as under Lampard.
To stop transitioning, Arsenal needs to show ambition and intent. You may ask how they are going to do that. So far in the transfer window, Arsenal has only invested in the future, the mentality is still "we are a work in progress".
To change that mentality, they need an intent signing, a signing for the now and not the future. A Ronaldo kind of signing would do wonders to the mentality around the squad. It doesn't have to be Ronaldo but you get what I mean. A player with a massive winning mentality.
The current Arsenal squad isn't as bad as the media highlights, they currently have some of the most talented and exciting talents in the league in Saka, Odegaard, Pepe, Martinelli. These names might not sound so heavyweight at the moment because they need bigger names and experience alongside them. They need some kind of hype within and around the team to kickstart the revival.
Arteta knows how to talk and what to talk but his philosophy is yet to be imprinted on the team, so for now it's just talking, but, I guess 2 years is still a short time to judge a new project right?
Having said all that, I believe showing ambition or the lack of it starts from the owners and it is no coincidence that Arsenal's decline started with the Kroenke era.
Lionel Messi & The Mirage Of Loyalty In Football
"Play for the name on the front of the shirt and they will remember the name on the back of the". This is one of the most popular loyalty quotes in football and is attributed to former Arsenal captain Tony Adams.
The above quote and I believe his mentality towards the club that warranted the quote in the first place I would say, is what totally endears him to Arsenal fans and the club generally and when you hear Arsenal fans talking about "Mr Arsenal", rest assured they are talking about Tony Adams.
It is safe to say that Tony Adams played football when loyalty in football was actually a big deal, an era where footballers would go to any lengths to represent the clubs they supported as kids. Now, things have changed obviously, there is excess money being thrown around currently in football and everyone's loyalty can be bought and paid for with either money or the lure to win bigger trophies somewhere else.
**Totti & The Generations Past**
Just like Tony Adams, Totti is another name that immediately comes to mind when club loyalty is being discussed. Francesco Totti was one of the most talented players of his generation and a true embodiment of the values of AS Roma. Granted we might not have seen the peak of his true talents because of his niggling injuries, regardless, he courted the admiration of some of the biggest clubs in Europe but he chose to stick it out with the Giallarorssi.
Totti's name at a point in his career became synonymous with AS Roma and it would have been extremely odd seeing him in another football club's strip.
I would say Totti is the last truly talented yet loyal footballer of his generation and it is yet to be seen if any player of the current generation, being as talented as Totti can choose to remain with a not so ambitious club in the mould of Roma when he has a chance of more money and trophies elsewhere.
Luis Figo enjoys (or not) his infamous "pig" status because of his move from Barcelona to Real Madrid. Barcelona fans have not been able to forgive that treachery until today.
Figo and Totti are just opposite examples of the same subject, while I consider Totti that last true loyal great, the same can't be said about Figo but the thing is, what Figo did back in the day that got him so much hate and disrespect from Barcelona fans and many neutral fans seem to have been normalized currently in football.
Players now move to former arch-rival clubs and there is no outrage. What has changed?
Something seems to have broken in football and everybody currently involved in football are thinking about money and rewards. Honour, emotions and loyalty are such weird and cringe words to throw up when discussing football. From club owners who treat the clubs strictly as a business venture where profit is the most important, to players who treat the club as just a job where fat paycheck and financial security comes first and every other thing next.
Money Changed Football And It Is Not For The Best
One of the things that have caused the drastic change in football culture is the private/corporate ownership of such a publicly owned (emotionally owned) sport. Club owners are just businessmen (some have a bit of love for the sport) and business owners care more about profit and financial stability more than they care about footballing bragging rights.
This new trend made clubs less tolerant and inpatient to coaches who aren't winning. So coaches hired by these kinds of clubs have little patience and tolerance for players who aren't performing because obviously, their job is on the line.
This in turn puts the fire up the players' asses and they have come to understand that their long term future isn't guaranteed at any club, so when they are at the peak of their powers, they usually ask for moves away to bigger clubs that would guarantee more money and trophies. Or they stay and request an astronomical increase in wages.
The fans on their part are seeing what these players are earning and want nothing but a top performance from these players and this is what has given rise to the new trend of home fans booing their players. The cycle continues nonstop and many times, the atmosphere becomes too toxic for everybody.
New Allegiance Is To Money/Family & Football...In That Order.
There is a new culture in football and it is one that has moved far away from club loyalties and building allegiances that transcends active playing careers.
Back in the day, football players cared about the clubs they represented the longest, cared about their fans and the feeling is mostly reciprocated. You could say they still care about all these things now but to a much lesser degree.
Money and fame have become the most important motivating factors in players choosing and remaining with certain clubs. With the exception of a handful of players anyways.
The idea now is that their playing career is so short and their job is not pensionable, so best to grab all the money you could while you still could and represent the best teams in the world why you still could.
So footballers now are motivated by providing the best life for their family and loved ones, make a ton of money for themselves and their family while they still could and still continue playing football at the highest level, it doesn't matter for whom or where.
This realization has made me not take football players who kiss the clubs badge seriously because I know it is all a charade. They don't really mean it. You can count on one hand the players that actually mean it when they kiss the badge.
Robin Van Persie kissed the Arsenal badge severally, was seen donning the Arsenal jersey as a kid, said he loved Arsenal but moved to Manchester United, scored against Arsenal and celebrated by jumping on Sir Alex Ferguson, right there in front of Arsene Wenger. He said when he and Arsenal couldn't agree on what they both want for the future, he knew he had to move.
Then he said the "child in him" provided a compass to a new destination by screaming "Manchester United". I could just laugh, but I am currently too pissed with Arsenal myself to actually give a toss about football right now.
Clubs show no loyalties to players, players show no long term allegiances to clubs and the fans are caught up in the rapture of emotions.
Mess Isn't Any Better
The circumstances that surround Messi's departure from Barcelona are still unclear to me to this day but what is crystal clear is the fact that he has been wanting to leave for the past two seasons now.
It is a fact that Barcelona's current squad is a far cry from what it used to be when they were at their absolute domineering best some 8-10 years ago.
It has been a slow and painful transition for them since. Trying to replace the spine of that Barcelona team that had Puyol, Xavi and Iniesta have been almost impossible. Plus the club hasn't covered itself in glory with its transfer dealings and general club operations.
All these and the trashing in the hands of Roma, Bayern and Roma in the Champions League, culminated in the little Argentine feeling fed up and wanting some new challenge, away from Barcelona. It almost happened last year but the inevitable was merely being postponed.
During his last press conference, emotions gushed and love was professed...the whole 9 yards. Messi said he wanted to sign an extension and Barcelona concurred that in fact, he wanted to but an agreement couldn't be reached with La Liga, thus Messi wouldn't be registered for the new season. What?
Now is my question. Why did Messi leave the contract extension so late? Why did he wait for his contract to expire before trying to re-sign? Why didn't he just sign when it was still running?
As I said, the whole thing confuses me, but one thing clear enough to me is...Messi needed a new challenge and wanted to leave.
My Hive & Splinterlands Investment Dilemma
This may sound like such a straightforward, easy to untangle kind of a mess. It is easy though when you just think about it alone. But when you have been active for a while on the Hive Blockchain, you'd understand where I am coming from.
Some time ago, when I hadn't explored so much into the Hive ecosystem, this dilemma wasn't really a thing. Because then, I didn't know that I could earn extra thing on the side by Powering Up my stash and manually curating posts. Neither did I know I could also delegate my coins to curating accounts and just chill and soak up profits. To put it aptly, I didn't know about the many investments and earning opportunities within the Hive ecosystem.
Little by little, I totally immersed myself into the ecosystem and now. it feels as though the more I learn, the more confused/conflicted I become (Information overload, I would say). And I am 100% sure there are lots of things I still do not know about and I know would further complicate my already complicated investment plans when I finally unravel them. Sweet!
Now, I am gonna be straight and honest with you here, the reason for my anxiety is the fear of missing out. Plain and simple. Sometimes I wish I could get a loan somewhere (my creditor has to be family though, I hate pressure) so I could utilize all the many investment opportunities on Hive, because, boy!
PROJECTS I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A SIGNIFICANT STAKE IN
My life outside the internet kind of circles around family, gaming and football. Yeah, I am a football lover and so are almost everybody around me. I hardly go through a whole day without playing PES or arguing about football with the boys.
Now, imagine my excitement when I found out there was a sports-related front-end on Hive, where I could talk about football and bag some SPORTS coins, which I would say is currently at a good price for anyone willing to bag themselves some.
The SPORTS token and the RABONA game are two of the projects I am sure are going to give me that generational wealth I have always known I was gonna get from Crypto. I mean look at Splinterlands, those fellas who started playing away 3+ years ago never imagined they were gonna be blown away by the recent success of the game and the SPS they have been getting.
Although I haven't started playing the RABONA, I have written a few articles on the SPORTS front-end to cup myself some stash. But I know I am not doing nearly enough because there is so much I could write, there is so much to earn over there. Phew!!
Another project I would love to jump onto for both long and short term gains is the @brofi BRO project. I have read so much good stuff about it and I hear they are currently rewarding holders daily with the SPS token?
I have mentioned three projects already and I haven't said anything about HIVE and LEO themselves, the heavyweights of the Hive Ecosystem. Just up till recently, I was liquifying all my Hive and Leo holdings and putting them into SPORTS but I have since stopped because I feel I should have some kind of foundation with HIVE at least. Being the official token of the ecosystem, I am sure it is not always gonna hang around the price at which it currently is, and the Splinterlands craze is proving that point.
Maybe I Am Spreading Myself Too Thin
You could be asking "so what the hell is stopping you". Well, I am a relatively new account on Hive and currently at a novice level in terms of knowledge I have taken in so far about how things really work around the ecosystem. That being the case, I am an account that is currently generating very little in terms of earnings (I haven't worked hard enough) and you know a brother is gotta eat too since I currently don't have any job outside the internet.
So, with the much I am generating from Hive and other platforms, I share amongst all my investment holdings. But I fear I might be spreading myself too thin with this strategy.
Trying To Make It Work
I have been working my socks off trying to raise my earnings and although it is working now, it is not a long term strategy because I could break down trying to keep up. Just want to make the money, then make the money work for me later - a tedious but ultimately rewarding process.
This is where Splinterlands comes into the picture. With the price of DEC soaring to new levels every day, Splinterland hustle is proving to be a nice complement to my writing grind (or maybe it is the other way round).
I am currently battling away with two accounts and today I would add two more accounts to that for two friends who can't play but want me to run their accounts for a split profit of 50-50.
I spend most of my days battling away on Splinterlands but that's just half the entire hustle. I also share my thoughts and gaming experience on the Splintertalk front-end for some sweet SPT coins. More SPT, more SPS airdrop points. I love it here!
My daily inflow of Crypto is currently coming from Splinterlands in the form of DEC and I have been wondering what best to do with them. (one of my many dilemmas).
Leaving them there on the gaming platform gives you the SPS airdrop points but would that be the best strategy at getting the best from the current price of DEC? An acquaintance of mine on noise.cash suggests I sell half of my DEC holding daily, so that, whichever way the price goes ultimately, I don't lose out.
That is a piece of sound advice and it felt like the best thing to do, then I stumbled upon https://leofinance.io/@jfang003/splinterlands-moving-dec-to-the-cub-finance-and-having-it-work-for-me which has given me an even better idea. I would just sell half of my DEC daily and move them into CUB (I think - scratching my head) Phew!!
I need that disclaimed financial advice.
Hey, what are you all doing with your DEC?
What projects do have the most significant stake on Hive?
I want to be a billionaire so freaking bad!! I need to put my money in the right places.
Giving Back To The Community - Onboarding Nigerians Through Nairaland.com
The employment and economic situations in Nigeria haven't been encouraging for quite some time but have been worsened by the inept policies of the incumbent administration.
Given the teeming youthful population of the country, equipped with tech "savviness" and the will to succeed, it is expected that they'd look outside what the government can (are willing to) provide.
Some of us who are already out here on the internet, hustling and grinding every day, won't stop preaching about how the internet is littered with financial opportunities. It is a daily sermon for me.
But sometimes I pause and think back to how I myself was onboarded.
Somebody had to create a portal through which I found my way in, and although I sometimes want to give the credit to just sheer luck, one thing I had going for me was the fact that I was actively looking, searching, for these kinds of opportunities. So luck played a part, so did my will to be lucky.
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**The Ultimate Internet Opportunity Portal**
Nairaland.com is the quroa.com of Nigeria, with over 2 million registered users, it is the go-to blog site for all kinds of formal and informal gist, job opportunities, romance, latest happenings in the country and the world at large. It has everything and anything.
I made my first $ on the internet in 2015 through a Nairaland thread post. The poster took a time out in teaching people about the writing, transcription and translation opportunities on Freelancer.com. It was a long-ass thread that spanned years and hundred of pages (I bet it still exists) and created lots of internet entrepreneurs.
I think I owe my writing journey and my ultimate introduction to the world of crypto to that one thread...and to Nairaland.
Fast forward to 5 years later, I stumbled upon the Write2earn crypto opportunity for the first time through another Nairalander's post, and although the post was more about him advertizing his affiliate link than trying to teach anybody anything, the portal was created regardless and I sneaked in through it, and here I am.
I have gained so much from Nairaland through people's willingness to share what they knew and how they were earning and I intend to contribute my own part.
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**Bypassing The Gag**
Although the platform has a weird policy of gagging crypto/forex related posts, which is why my first post there was deleted. I didn't relent and I am not relenting because I intend to be a way through which people can find their next meal, their big break, their generational wealth.
Before my post was deleted, a lot of people had already contacted me, signalling their interests and I subsequently created a Telegram group as well as a channel where I dump everything I know then take turns to attend to anyone with questions individually.
So far, I feel proud that I have been able to onboard two people through this means. One of them is already a writer waiting for an opportunity like this, so he hit the ground running, immediately.
What I like about him is his will to succeed. Dude doesnt have a PC but he didn't let it deter him, he signed up and has been writing posting with his phone. Here is the link to one of his posts on Hive. https://hive.blog/proofofbrain/@kushyzee/diary-of-a-newbie-programmer-my-journey-so-far
The other dude was more into gaming so I explained Splinterlands to him and luckily for us both, he was already familiar with blockchain gaming. The first question he asked was if it costs any transaction fees to play the game as it did him with Cryptoblades. I said no, and he jumped right now.
Two days later, he hit me up on Telegram and told me he had liquified his cryptoblades assets and is putting everything into Splinterlands. Hahaha. I bet Ethereum fees have shown him a thing or two.
So far so good, I think am doing the lord's work and I intend to do more. The more Nigerians on Hive, the less we can cry about unemployment.
They Lack, Amidst Abundance.
The Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lock-down across the globe has become the go-to reference point for every economic downturn anywhere you look. You'd hardly see/hear any bad economic news that they aren't blaming the pandemic, even many of the 3rd world nations that got some big bucks in aids from the developed nations are milking it too.
While some nations were well and truly heavily affected economically by the lockdown, some others, not so much. This is debatable though but as I might not be talking from a worldwide view and from the standpoint of a professional economic analyst, I stand to be corrected.
**Breaking It Down**
Before the Covid-19 lockdown, many people all over the world were jobless/out of jobs. Although the consequent effects of the Covid are still here with us, the world is moving on regardless. But people are still jobless and will continue to be, and when you enquire from them as to why, their reasons would have been lack of employment opportunities in their immediate environment and their home nation generally. Legit, but how long are we gonna sing that song?
***There are no jobs anywhere, but there are financial opportunities everywhere on the internet.***
When someone gives you a legit reason why they are out of jobs and have no means of livelihood, the humane thing to do would be to show a bit of empathy but then you gotta follow that up with "but what are you doing about your situation"?
Since the advent of the internet, there have been more work options/opportunities than there were when everything was done physically and within our immediate environment.
There are no job opportunities within your immediate environment, yes, but the internet offers you an opportunity to move out of your immediate environment, seek greener pasture while still on your not-so-green pasture. Would you rather use it to just watch porn, chat away and get yourself depressed on Instagram, being a Stan to those who are already achieving their own life goals?
I see a lot of people every day with internet-enabled phones and laptops yet jobless and always lacking money. Lacking amidst abundance.
The truth is the average internet user with a low mentality sees it as a way to escape their immediate environment, catch a cruise and then come back to their sad lives later. This is such an underuse of the all-knowing internet because it offers all those and much more.
Those with elite mentality use the internet for what it is - The best tool for personal development. The internet is one of the best inventions/innovations the human race has ever seen and it is evolving every single day yet grossly underused, misused and undervalued.
Before I continue, I'd love to list out a few things anyone could do on the internet and improve their financial and mental state.
Access to an unlimited pool of books - Pdfdrive.com
Building both passive & active income with cryptocurrency - Writing & Gaming.
Publishing. (You could even publish books with no content) - Amazon Kindle
Language translation/transcription. - Freelancer.com, Elance.com, Fiver.com.
Crypto-based blogging/Vlogging - Read.cash, Noise.cash, Hive.blog, Publish0x.com, odysee.com. etc.
Adult content producers - Onlyfans.
There are practically lots of things anyone, even the most untalented of humans could do to earn money and better their lives on the internet but you see, many prefer to cry and despair with those not making efforts (because they can't see beyond their noses) than be part of the winning few who are charting new unfamiliar territory.
***If losing is popular, a lot of people would rather lose.***
There are many reasons why people would rather sit and complain about lack of jobs and money than chart a new path for themselves but I'd say the most glaring is the aversion to change.
***Conclusion***
From time immemorial, we have always had both the rich and the poor at every point in human existence. The world has now changed, new and better opportunities are available almost to everyone, yet there is still inequality in wealth distribution, there are still rich and poor people existing. I guess, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Splinterlands - Things You Should Know As A Beginner
It is difficult not to get addicted to Splinterlands if you are naturally a gamer. I mean, everything about the game is so cool, the graphics, the sound effects, characters and their cool names and buffs. What's not to love?
Then to top it off, you get to earn a financial reward do something you would have done for free anyway. How cool is that?
I wonder the number of people who would have turned professional gamers if they were earning $100 daily from playing their Ps5. Context...
Well, I have been playing the game for a little while now and I am definitely putting restrictive measures on myself because I think I might have started playing it a little too much. This is a weird thing to say though, given that the more you play, the more you earn...or not?
There is a lot to learn about the game if you intend to succeed in it and hit the high leagues and make big bucks. Every day, I find out things about the game I didn't even know were there, mostly from other people's experiences.
This is the reason I am sharing the little I know and have discovered both from playing and reading other people's in-game experiences.
Capture Rate
The developers really covered almost all bases with this game. Sometimes, while I play, I'd just wow at their brilliance. The Dark Energy Capture Rate is designed for people like us who wouldn't mind playing the game round the clock. It was also designed for those who would have played all day with bots and gathered all the damn DEC for themselves.
So the Capture rate makes sure playing for too long is financially counterproductive, unless you are spending long periods of time playing the game just for learning purposes only.
The more you play, the lower your capture rate goes and the lesser DEC you make from winning battles. When I started, at some point, I was making a meagre 3DEC for winning battles, I thought it was normal because probably I was just starting out. How wrong I was. I remember seeing my capture rate at 23% one time and I kept playing. Phew!
My capture rate is currently at 61% and I have resigned to just completing daily quests until it gets back to 100%.
Resource Credit
You probably aren't active on the Hive blogging platform if you arent familiar with Hive Resource Credit.
Just like the Splinterlands Capture Rate, the Resource credit is also a measure by the Hive platform to mitigate excessive transactions(activities) on the Hive blockchain. Resource credit is sort of a Hive currency used to pay for transactions, like posting, comments, etc.
Where Resource credit comes in here is, Splinterlands is built under the Hive blockchain and activities like finding a match and submitting teams are all Hive transactions that require and use the Resource Credit.
The more you play, the more depleted your RC becomes and at a time you may not be able to even submit a team for battle. That means you would have ran your RC to ground zero.
Quest Potion
I have been playing for a month now but it was just yesterday that I discovered that you could increase the number of chests from your daily quests by buying a question potion from the potion market. I had been getting just one Chest for every quest, then my power rose to a certain number and I was getting 2.
Imagine discovering there is a chance of getting 7 chests every day? With the possibility of pulling a gold foil/expensive card/ 50k DEC? Sign me up, please!
Yeah, you could increase your chances of pulling a mind-blowing loot by buying the daily quest potion. It only costs 1000 CREDITS or 750 DEC but I suggest you use CREDITS instead.
Ascending The Power Ladder Through Renting
For newbies like myself, it is a struggle climbing the power ladder on Splinterlands, especially when you don't have money to spend on card purchases, especially since the price of cards isn't what it used to be a year or ago.
If you are looking to buy your way up the Power ladder, then you are really gonna be spending a lot of big $ because some of the cards that would boost your Power into bigger leagues are some really expensive cards.
My current 16k Power has come through renting Legendary and gold foil cards and I wouldn't have been at this power level if I had insisted on buying cards, or if the renting system didn't exist.
Renting gold foiled and Legendary cards boost your power level more than the other cards, this is what I have observed but I could be wrong though.
These are some of the things I have learnt in just a short while being a Splinterlander and I intend to share more as I play on.
I Won Against Yodin Zaku & Scarred Lamma Mage
If you are an old head on Splinterlands, then you'd already know how tough it is to win against these Summoners, especially if you aren't battling them with an equally sophisticated Summoner.
For context though, I have been playing Splinterlands for about one month now, my learning period inclusive and my most expensive/sophisticated Summoner is Mylor Crowling(I rented it) which costs around $12 for ordinary foil and $80 for gold foil. Crowling's only buff is giving his monsters the torn ability, where enemy Melee attackers, suffer a form of self-inflicted harm once they attack any of Crowling's monsters.
Crowling's buff is so cool, I won't lie but in comparison, falls short of Yodin Zaku and the Scarred Mage, because it can only work against melee monsters.
In comparison, Yodin Zaku costs approximately $400 for the ordinary foil and $3000 for the gold foil. Zaku gives its monsters +1 health before the battle, gives all its ranged monsters the blast effect and also gives all its range attackers +1 range.
In other words, Yodin Zaku's monsters could kill all your monsters before you even knew what the hell was going on.
The Scarred Llama on other hand is one bad-ass Summoner that I'd love to have someday, I love the buff of Zaku but something about the Llama kinda gives me inner peace by just looking at it. Maybe because it is just an innocent-looking lamb with cool buffs. How did the developers think out all these cool card characters? I keep wondering. Hahaha
The Llama gives all its monsters +2 health, gives them the cleansing ability and gives them the last man standing ability too. This means the added health aside, all damaged friendly monsters are cleansed and rehabilitated at the beginning of every round (I think) then the Last Man Standing buff gives the last surviving friendly monster double of its original health, +1 speed, +1 attack and +1 shield. Can you beat that? Imagine getting all these cool buffs when the opposition Monsters are barely hanging on.
Now you can see why it is difficult battling these guys and why I am celebrating this very little win. LOL. They have completely annihilated me every single time I met them in battle, so these one-off victories need to be celebrated.
My Battle With Yodin Zaku
When the battle loaded and I saw the lineup, I gave up hopes of any chance of causing an upset because that lineup is fierce but I had some advantage I didn't know about at the time. First and foremost, this was one of those battles that have a ruleset and here, melee monsters had the reach ability, so they could attack from any position.
I had Mylor Crowling as my summoner (guaranteed -2 health from enemy melee monsters each time they attack me), and though I had just 3 monsters on my line up as compared to my opponent's 5, my defence had had bigger health and thus could withstand the blast effect and also a combined Melee attack of +6 to cause havoc on the opponent's monsters.
Plus, I had the Stone Golem who is built like a rock, literally and can withstand pressure from both melee and ranged attackers for long. Plus he has +2 shield on him.
But, I reckon if my opponent had chosen more ranged monsters than melee monsters, he would have won the battle with the blast effect and my Mylor's thorn effect wouldn't have hurt him so much. My selection was spot on, but it wasn't intentional at all, neither was it strategic. Blind luck I guess.
My Battle With The Scarred Llama Mage
I don't usually feel as bad when I am defeated by an opponent who uses the Scarred Llama as I do when its Yodin, because like I said, I have a soft spot for the innocent looking lamb. But a win against it is equally celebrated because I usually do not stand a chance against it with the choice of summoners at my disposal.
Again, looking back at my lineup, I dont know if I actually thought that any line up I had was gonna matter, but when I sighted from my opponent's past battles that he had the Llama and I saw the Stone Golem as a monster he loved to use, I knew I had to go for the jugular if I were to stand a chance.
So, went for a magic attack because it affects monsters health directly, instead of their shields first.
I chose Alric Stormbringer as my Summoner, he adds +1 magic to all my magic monsters. That's 8 magic firepower that would hit the opponents health straight on because I had 4 magic monsters on my lineup.
Then I had the Sea Monster leading my attack with 4 melee attacks, 8 health and the ability to heal after each round. Sweet.
To my surprise, this battle ended quicker than I thought it would, with 5 of my monsters still standing.
My opponent had some sick lineup too, the Hydra, Stone Golem and the Sandworm are formidable monsters but magic seems to be their kryptonite.
Building A Sustainable Income Stream On Hive, With No Initial Out-Of Pocket Investment
My journey into the world of the write2earn and play2earn side of crypto have been relatively short but most illuminating and certainly very rewarding - knowledge and financial wise.
When I started out, there wasn't really any concrete long term plans or goals for that matter. The only operational plan was to, write, earn and liquify.
This is partly because I had little to no knowledge about Defi tools (staking & Farming) and because the platform I started out at (read.cash) encouraged writers to withdraw their funds as their safety wasn't guaranteed, given there were no keys or any wallet security.
So I basically just wrote, earned, liquified and just stacked fiat (when situations let me stack them).
Hive Changed The Hustle For Me
I stumbled upon the Hive Ecosystem through another writer's blog post on Publish0x, and since I wanted to spread my tentacles and earn more, I signed up and cross-posted from the platforms I was already writing on.
My first few posts on leofinance.io were a relative success but unlike read.cash which rewarded writers with BCH, I found Leo/Hive a bit more complicated to liquefy and withdraw.
Don't blame me, I didn't know about Leodex at the time. I even made a post requesting assistance on how I could withdraw my earnings. Well, nobody seemed to give a damn.
The difficulties I encountered in withdrawing my earnings on Leofinance turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While still exploring how to withdraw those Leo tokens staring at me every day, I stumbled upon several posts about earning weekly passive income through curation and token delegation and I adjusted my view on my persistent need for withdrawal.
HAVING SOMETHING TO BUILD AROUND/UPON
After I read @uyobong post on his weekly curation rewards, I knew I had stumbled upon something. I know he has been around the Hive ecosystem for 3+ years and I am barely 7 months old on the platform but I understand the power of hard work and consistency. https://www.sportstalksocial.com/hive-167922/@uyobong/how-decent-is-usd75-weekly-curation-rewards-from-leo-ctp-sports-and-list
The thought of building something on the internet that would sustain me off it appealed to me more than anything else. Especially the fact that it could serve both as a job and a pastime.
@uyobong is passionate about the Sports token on the Hive blockchain, where I think he gets most of his curation earnings from, and doesn't miss the chance to shill it. Since I myself am a football person, I jumped onto the opportunity to write football-related posts, earn and power up, with the view of building a reasonable SPORTS stake for my own curation rewards too.
My growth so far has been slow, but it is expected and I am not fazed because I have my focus locked on the long term. So, there has not been a cash(crypto) flight out of Hive for me. In fact, I pull my resources from other platforms into my Hive investments every now and then. Everything I earn goes back into my stakes, especially Hive and Sports.
My ultimate plan is to be able to not just survive but blossom solely from my earnings on Hive. I am talking about being able to travel around the world on a whim.
**Splinterlands Provided Me with Another Platform To Build Upon.**
Someone was of the opinion that if SPS and the price of DEC keeps shooting up, then we might have on our hands soon a lot of professional Splinterlands gamers.
Since I started playing Splinterlands approximately one month now, I have been able to grow in the game and have grown my game assets to close to $100. Quite commendable I would say, for someone who barely knew jack about the game a month ago.
The craze about Splinterlands isn't just the rush for the SPS airdrop, a lot of people, especially the early adopters have seen the investment opportunities lying therein within the game. I mean the prices of cards have gone to crazy heights and the price of 1000 DEC originally pegged at $1 is almost $5 now and the sky is the limit.
My plan for Splinterlands is to grow my assets to at least up to a thousand dollars or more within 4 months and if the price of DEC remains as it is or keeps going up, then I will dissolve and move some to my SPORTS stakes.
Card Renting is and would still be the ultimate side income earning machine on Splinterlands, I also plan to utilize that as well, but I would have to have grown a much reasonable deck first.
My project is still in its infancy but at least I am underway and so far, haven't bought a single crypto token with money out of my pocket. Everything I currently own has been generated online, and this is the beauty of the Crypto and the Hive Ecosystem.
Week 4 On Splinterlands - My Experience
I am certain you are tired of reading about this damn game because plenty has already been written about it since SPS started dropping. Here is me begging your pardon, indulge me if you would, I am not gonna sing another praise of the game, enough has been sung. But I come with a Mylor Crowling smug...
I am just gonna write about my experience generally and the incentives within the game that would make it worth anybody's while. I wrote a post last week about my experience 3 weeks into the game, now I have played for one more week and I have more to share.
Current Challenges
Since the start of the SPS airdrop, the game experience has been generally pretty bad. A lot of people rode the airdrop hype and jumped in and this has caused quite the overload on the website.
You'd be lucky playing engaging in 10 straight battles without experiencing any kind of hiccup. I guess the developers didn't expect to see the number of new users rise the way it did and I am sure they have been doing everything they can to get it back to the smooth level it was at before the airdrop.
Many times you'd find out that you surrendered a battle(without your knowledge), even when you had submitted your team even a whole minute before the countdown elapses. This has made me lose some massive points many times to move up on the leaderboard.
**In-Game Experience**
The website overloading and going into maintenance is all I would say has been the biggest challenge thus far, every other thing is about the difficulties you'd expect in learning a new game.
From the outside, it might look and sound like just a card game, but it isn't just that, you'd have to get in to really understand. It is war, that's why we do battle.
I have had my ass kicked severally by players using much superior Summoners and Monsters but I usually don't take it laying down. I note down the names of these badass Monsters/Summoners and head straight to the market to either buy them if they are cheap enough for me or I rent them when I cant afford outright ownership.
Utilizing The Renting System
I have found the renting system quite helpful in my race north of the leaderboard.
As someone who is just in the intermediary levels, my stockpile of cards is currently lightweight and to boost my Power level and also win hard battles, I needed to do something and that's where the renting system comes in handy.
Currently, I have 5 Summoners and 18 monsters rented out to me which altogether are worth approximately $500 but cost me probably around $8 to rent for 7 days.
The earnings from those rented cards within the 7 days I have used them have well made up for, plus profit, the money spent on them.
Also, I have bought some cheap cards, as well as holding on to the ones I earned in battles and my daily quests, you'd never know what they'd cost tomorrow.
**Making It Worth Your While**
In the end, it is a crypto based-game and it wouldn't be worth anybody's while if they aren't earning from it.
Spending $10 on a Spellbook kinda threw me off when I first got in, but after playing the game for a week or so and reading the reviews of many older adopters, paying for the Spellbook was a no-brainer and it has been absolutely worth it.
So far, in just about a month, I have recouped my initial investment of $10, made some profit and currently receiving the SPS airdrop, even though it isn't significant when compared to some of the numbers I have seen people get, but there is a whole year to go and I still have the chance to stockpile game assets and increase the quantity of the airdrop I'd be getting.
I am currently working towards buying another Spellbook for my second account with earnings from the first account, so I'd be battling on two fronts and increase my earnings and my chances of getting mind-blowing cards from daily quests and end of the season rewards.
For a game I started playing barely a month ago, my assets haul is very encouraging and since this is still early days, I can't help but imagine the value it'd hold in the next 3 months. I am having fun and I am building a sustainable income stream along the way...SWEET!
**Play, Write & Earn**
Besides just battling away in the arena and earning a bunch of shiny DEC, playing Splinterlands has been a revelation for me in terms of daily/weekly earnings on the Hive blockchain.
There are many ways you could boost your income and rack up on this crypto just by interacting with Splinterlands. You can earn DEC, SPT, HIVE, LEO and even SPS along the way.
A lot of people are fixated on the increased price of DEC and are spending a lot more time playing the game to accumulate more DEC but that's not the only way you could earn.
The Splintertalk front end needs engagements and the SPT token is currently trading at **0.02 HIVE / $0.008** on the Hive Engine and good posts are encouraged with a lot of upvotes. So what I do, and what Splinterlands is encouraging every gamer to do is, battle away, then share your experience with the rest of the community.
Crypto - The Gift That Keeps Giving
The man that introduced me to Cryptocurrency in 2017 assured me that as long as I stuck around and learned the ropes, that I was going to make generational wealth from it. But the thing is, he was talking about playing the market games - buying low and selling high, selling low and buying back lower.
In fact, he was basically talking about trading Bitcoin and Ethereum as those were the two most stable coins that afforded enough data for the study of Fundamental and Technical Analysis. We were warned to stay off alts lest we got rekt.
Some of us budding traders were given a trader's starter pack of $50 by our mentor and were taught how to trade on Luno and Binance. Plus we were also taught how to do leveraging of trade for the big boys. With these small starter packs, some of us who were really dedicated and had unflinching willpower soon turned their starter packs to something significant and before long, they were cut loose and were on their own.
...with little or no investment
This here alone is why we can never talk enough about the positive financial impact of cryptocurrency because it provides such a level playing field.
Believe it or not, some of the guys who utilized their starter packs at the beginning of our trading journey now have mentees under their wings and are doing very well for themselves and the crypto community at large.
Imagine building a sustainable income 4 years down the road just from a meagre $50 and the will to succeed.
I remember some of my buddies from our telegram group back then who had the foresight of saving their trading profits by buying and stacking alts. The dream was Lambo (financial freedom), the ultimate crypto dream. Some got hundreds of BNB under $10 in 2017, some bought a few Ethereum under $100, others stacked Monero for just a few bucks and 4 years down the line, the values of these coins have risen beyond anyone's wildest beliefs.
**Forth & Splinterlands Airdrop**
**...Forth**
The Forth airdrop is still fresh in the minds of many people, especially those who write blog posts on publish0x. This is one of the biggest airdrops I had seen (SPS surpassed that), in terms of the quantity/value people received by merely interacting with the AMPL coin.
The beautiful thing here is, a lot of people who benefited from this airdrop didn't buy AMPL with their money thanks to Publish0x.com.
An acquaintance of mine from noise.cash got around $15k worth of Forth for all the AMPL payouts he had gotten from Publish0x and the thing is, all the AMPL he got were barely worth $100.
**...SPS**
Well, I'll be damned! Splinterlands is the talk of the crypto-space at the moment, all thanks to the SPS airdrop.
I was explaining Splinterlands yesterday to a gamer who isn't into crypto, and he said yeah, he kinda understands the game, that it was much more like GardenScapes, an IOS/Android game. I said yeah, it's like Gardenscapes because I am familiar with it too. Then I told him that people were getting massive bucks (free money) from just playing the game. He paused for a moment and gave it a little thought then tried to make it make sense to himself.
Then he asked, "you mean, for instance, I get paid daily in $ because I had been playing Gardenscapes for 3 years and have been stacking those game assets"? I said yeah, then I told him some people are getting up to a thousand dollars daily and would keep getting that or more for 365 days.
Then I told him that, the airdrop aside, all the in-game assets have real monetary value and are yours to sell or rent as you see fit.
He was dumbfounded, I would have been too but at least it made sense to me since I know about crypto and I know about airdrops but I was blown away regardless.
That generational wealth my mentor talked about might have been a long task through the route of buying and selling crypto, but I have my attention locked onto it from this side of crypto - the fun side.
NFT & Gaming Are Making It Easier To Talk About Crypto.
Crypto Used To Be A Vague Language
Before I fully immersed myself into the cryptocurrency world, I used to feel like an outsider because almost everything I heard of crypto felt too technical for me to grasp. Much like how Forex and Index trading sound to me right now because I know zilch about them.
I may have taken a long, painful and difficult road to crypto but I am finally here and every day, I discover many more reasons why here is where I should build my financial tent.
Back when I was onboarded, it was a lot difficult to convince people to even pay attention to what the hell you were talking about. Part of the reason being that it was still such early days for the then-new invention. Another reason was that the few people that knew enough about it merely saw it as a tool for two of the most popular Ponzi scheme in Nigeria then, of which I was a partaker - MMM International & Get Help Worldwide.
As is expected, every pyramid scheme ultimately crashes. These ones did, and a lot of people were burned, lots of money were lost and relationships were wrecked. So, afterwards, when you talked about Bitcoin, you were indirectly talking about Ponzi scheme (to a lot of people that were burned or knew someone that was burned), so it always took some convincing and pacifying to get them onboard.
It was a lot easier to get me onboarded because I am a lot open-minded if I saw a willing mentor. Plus I was really struggling financially, so it was easy, given that I heard Crypto was gonna give me generational wealth.
What Has Changed?
Crypto has come a long way, but I speculate that nobody could have predicted less than 8 years ago that the industry could have made such giant leaps as it has. Those years ago, it felt like crypto was just gonna be about Bitcoin, Ethereum and a few other shitcoins.
Fast forward to 2021 and you could explain crypto to a 10-year-old and they would understand you just fine, thanks to Blockchain Gaming and the NFT.
Truth is, Crypto has become a lot more appealing, partly because of the 2021 bull run which made a lot of people rich and made a lot of fuss, and partly because of Doge, Elon, all the Viral Memes and then Blockchain Gaming and NFT.
NFT & Gaming
Yesterday, I told my brother about the Splinterlands airdrop and he asked if it was open to everybody, I said nope, just the gamers and he was disappointed.
I said dude, the airdrop is gonna run for a whole year, plus it is an incentive to get people to come down from the fence and join the Gaming movement, I don't see what's holding you back.
If gaming isn't an incentive enough for him (he is not much of a gamer), I know the earnings are gonna be, and I make sure I don't stop telling him what I make every day from just playing a virtual game.
Crypto has gone mainstream and has become both a source of work and pleasure for the adopters. Now it is a lot easier to get people to sit down and listen to you talk to them about crypto because there is a lot to talk about now.
You can talk to an art lover about crypto and the conversation wouldn't be so much about you trying your hardest to convince them with word of mouth when you can just show them some of the highest-selling NFTs out there. You can talk crypto technicalities with them in much simpler terms because you guys aren't only talking about crypto but also about art.
You can discuss price movements of NFTs, platforms where they can and can't be stored etc and before you know, you would have mentioned Ethereum, Tron, BSC, Hive and would have explained their differences and similarities in layman terms.
3 Weeks On Splinterlands - My Experience.
I have had to postpone writing this post many times because I can't seem to stay away from the game since I started playing it. As I flipped open my laptop this morning, I had to make sure I write first before I open my Splinterlands Tab, because that would have meant postponing this post yet again.
Yeah, that's actually how addictive it can get, that's if you are a game person because I have read some people call the game boring and uninteresting - what the hell are they smoking?
Well, I have actually kept abreast with the game for a while now and each time I read people's experiences and the rewards they had been racking up, I get butterflies in my stomach and I ask myself "all that from just playing a damn virtual game? I must be slacking.
I was kinda slacking though, for real, because I wasn't yet ready to buy the Spellbook which I read makes everything worth the while. I wasn't ready because I didn't have $10 worth of loose Hive - My bad though, I didn't know I could buy the spellbook with many other cryptos aside from Hive.
In-Game Coaching:
I didn't turn pro all by myself, LOL...as a newbie, you will get to know the workarounds of the game by being tutored by Professor Lorelax, he takes his time to explain things to you about Summoners and Monsters to use to counter whatever are the strengths of your enemies. Like using Speed Monsters when your opponent is using more of slow heavy hitters.
The tutorial is pretty straightforward and in no time anybody would have a hang of it and take it from there - exactly how I did.
Learning The Curve On My Own:
There is so much you can gain from a tutorial though, you gotta put yourself out there, apply yourself, lose some battles and learn from them. Exactly how it is in real life.
I started off my first battles with the Fire Summoners/Splinters, won some battles with them and totally fell in love with their strengths. I loved their speed and efficiency in battle.
I especially love the Serpentine Spy - sneaky bastard. I totally dread playing an opponent that uses the Fire Summoners because I hate coming up against the Serpentine Spy. It usually goes on a one-man attack and takes out your monsters before they even got involved in the battle.
Weird enough, I cant seem to find a way to counter its strengths. Even when I use a Fire Summoner/Splinter against an opponent using the same, if he has the Spy in his team, I usually end up losing. I hate it and I absolutely love it. Damn.
Game Strategies
I have found that this is more of a strategy and a mind game than it is of just an ordinary card game - Well, it is a battle game anyways, battles are mixtures of mind games and strategies.
Unless I am trying to complete a Daily Quest and was asked to use a particular Splinter, I usually play with the Water Splinter. I find the Monsters within more efficient in battle.
**Alric Stormbringer** is usually my Summoner because he boosts the magic effects of the magic monsters and magic pierces through armours and does direct damage to any monster, big and small.
**Serpent Of Eld** is usually the monster I place at the forefront of battle because it seems to have everything to lead the frontlines for me. It has speed, shield, long life and its Melee attack packs a punch.
Then right behind it, I either have the Water Elemental (he only seems to fight when he is behind another guy. LOL) or I line up Medusa and the rest of the magic Monsters depending on the amount of Mana I got.
Sometimes when I am coming up against a Splinter that I know loves to target my efficient monsters with just 2 lives, I use Albatross as a decoy and either use my own Opportunity monster (**Feasting Seaweed**) Or I just hope my magic monsters take out the guy in front quickly enough for those sneaky monsters like Serpentine Spy or Feral Spirit to come fight man to man instead of attacking from behind. LOL
My strategy seems to be working so far, I got myself a 5 match winning streak (my longest) with it and I got up to 1000+ rating.
Earning Rewards:
Before I finally bought the Spellbook, I played a lot of games without earning anything(reasonable) but I didn't mind because I was more interested in understanding how the game worked before thinking about earning proper. But I am not gonna lie, earning was what motivated me in the first place, but I wanted to know what I was doing first of all.
So I finally bought the Spellbook and the rewards started trickling in from DEC won after every match (I get between 2 to 3+ after each win) to getting cards after completing the daily quests. And I have realised that the more cards you hold in your collection, the more power you get and the higher you climb in the league's ladder. Which ultimately means the bigger rewards you get from quests and end of season rewards. Win-Win for me.
**Funding My Habit:**
Playing this game has become a habit for me, and I spend more than 6 hours playing it daily. Sometimes I play it a lot longer than 8hrs in a day which is why I have completed nearly 400 battles in a little less than 3 weeks.
My love for the game aside, I am trying to treat it like a business and as an investment and in business, you have to spend money to make money.
You all know that on this side of crypto, we hardly turn fiat into money to get things done. We usually earn crypto, change them into other types of crypto (when needed) and let them work for us.
I bought my Spellbook from my BCH earnings on noise.cash. That's $10 worth of BCH spent with the aim of opening doors to more earnings.
Going forward, my intentions are to channel most of my earnings in the crypto space (BCH, Loe, HIve, POB etc) towards getting more cards. In the coming days, I would love to hit 1000 Power and more, because that means more rewards and more DEC after winning each battle.
Plus, I am hearing great things about the airdrop and I wouldn't wanna miss out on anything that's coming to me free of charge. Seriously, are there any downsides to this game? I am completely wowed. With the cards in your holding, you can decide to liquidate them anytime and get all your money plus more back.
Sometimes We Are The Problem
Family Values
While growing up, every human being passes through many forms of socialization, ranging from the family to their places of religious worship, school, etc.
The earliest socialization period, which usually starts from the immediate family (mustn't be with mom and dad), tends to mould the child the most. I mean whatever beliefs and perceptions we hold in life are usually learnt in our immediate family.
As we grow older with these values, beliefs and perceptions, they tend to guide our actions and inactions in life.
The tricky thing about these first values we have learnt from our family is, much like religious doctrines, they needn't be generally acceptable to everybody or even make sense, but because we have been taught to accept them, we see them as the perfect way of life and we uphold them like soldiers.
Some of these values I write of arent necessarily taught as you may have in your conventional school settings. We see how mum relates with dad and vice versa and we take mental notes. We see how our parents relate with our other siblings and how our siblings respond, we take note of these actions and inactions, archive and internalize them.
Another tricky thing about this stage of socialization is, something has to fill the void of this level in a child's life. Whether the parents do it, or aunts or uncles, or older siblings or school...somebody or something is certainly going to do it.
And whatever fills this level with its "truth" in a child's life, is what would guide that child into adulthood. In a familiar where everybody is thrown big parties on their birthdays grow to attach great values to such days, they almost always remember their relations birthdays because birthdays are special days in such families.
In families where domestic abuse happens between parents, the kids are bound to internalize and re-enact them later in life, not because they think it's right or wrong but because they have been taught directly or indirectly that physical(sometimes emotional) is the way to respond to some situations.
When kids who have been taught these family values finally step out of the family into the world, with their life's "manual" in hand, they reproduce all which they have learnt in their families.
Into The Society
Now, here is where it all gets interesting. The complexity of interpersonal relationships is made so because people from these many different family backgrounds and setups have converged and are living life how they know best.
When conflicts arise, probably born out of a clash between all these varying individuals traits, because we have been raised to behave in a certain way and we are sure there is nothing wrong with behaving that way, we usually think we are totally innocent of those conflicts.
We go about pointing fingers at the rest of the group when the problem might just lie with us.
Take for instance, people who have been taught (indirectly) to internalize their distaste in other people's actions instead of expressing them openly and immediately are bound to cause further frictions with their sour demeanour within any group they find themselves in.
For the fact that they refuse to point and kill a particular problem, it lingers in their hearts and festers. That problem might not be all that serious, but it snowballs into something bigger and kills the energy in the environment because of how they have handled it.
While the person in question all the while acts like the victim, he is actually the reason there is so much shit all over the wall.
It is easy to think that other people are the problem when there is conflict within a group because from where we stand, our shit really don't stink but when we do some deep reflection, that's if we don't let our stubbornness get in the way of personal truth, we would see that we have played a good part in creating the problem and a great part in making it bigger.
Crypto - The Cons Of Working From Home.
We are quickly moving away from the era of 9-5 grinding and the pace picks up as each new day dawns. The Covid lockdown of last year forced many people to work from home and in a way opened up a new channel for companies to leverage on the technology already available to us.
Now enter crypto, one of the best and most rewarding work-from-home ventures the world has ever seen. Whatever it is you are doing with cryptocurrency could be done from anywhere in the world, with your phones and laptops. And for this reason, a new era of lazy people's work is born.
Hey, why break a bone out there when you could just chill in your airconditioned home and pile up cash...right? Yes of course, but like the elders of my tribe usually say - ihe na atuto, na ebgu egbu. Which loosely translates as sweet things kill faster.
Working from home is such a sweet thing, you'd hardly see anyone not taking that option if it comes down to choice. Especially since in all crypto-related hustles, you are guaranteed to be your own boss.
There is a lot to be eulogized about this thing of ours (crypto - working from home) but there are some things you need to keep in mind - sweet things kill!
Working Condition - Posture
Whatever it is you are working with, be it a phone or laptop, you are bound to get carried away thinking there is nothing wrong with the way your neck is always bent lower than your range of vision. If you are working full time from home, you would do well to invest in some good working station.
The idea is to retire early in good health, not to retire and start nursing back and spinal problems, that would totally suck.
***What to do?***
An ergonomic chair would help you maintain a good sitting posture and having your screen high enough to meet your range of vision would also make you not bend or slouch - Together, you got yourself a good workstation.
The idea is to retire early in good health, not to retire and start nursing back and spinal problems, that would totally suck.
Sedentary Worklife.
In conventional working situations, we at least spend some amount of time on transit to the office or where ever we get our meat. That movement from the house to the office, regardless of how short or long it is, is enough to get the heart pumping and at least help vary our body movement - a mini exercise of some sort.
While working from home, you are hardly afforded the privilege of such mini exercises. You wake up, shower (some don't) eat and head straight to your workstation. And you spend almost all day there, seated.
The crypto space is fun and there are lots of fun things to do and before you know it, you'd even have time to chow. Yeah I know because I spend more than 6hrs a day playing Splinterlands alone, then what about blogging and curating?
The thing is we aren't designed to sit at a place for long periods of time without it having grave consequences on our health. Shii, I'd love to be old and still killing it.
***What to do?***
Well, at least here you don't really need to spend any money, just proper planning and a good exercise regimen. Especially exercise that help improve posture, like deadlifts, push-ups and plank.
It would be nice too to add brisk walking to your daily routine. When you close up shop for the day, try and walk for at least an hour. This has lots of other benefits besides being good for your metabolism, your heart and your joints.
Loss Of Social Skills
I have heard people say this is actually happening with people who work long periods from home and do not go out often to interact with people. I didn't think it was that serious until I went out after almost a whole week at home and I could no longer say the right things when I find myself with my buddies.
I mean, you become rusty and tend to get timings of things as simple as jokes or even laughter all wrong. It is weird but it happens.
You know they always say, 'if you don't use it, you lose it' and since social skill is an acquired skill set when you stop making use of it, you could become very bad at it when it's time to use.
***What to do?***
As much as internet interaction has come to stay, we hardly use all our social skills on the internet, which means we still need to go out, interact with other humans and do the things humans do together with other humans.
Do not shy away when friends beep you for a hangout, go be a human. You could even organize some of the hangouts yourself sometimes. Learn to mix the virtual with the tangible and you can never go wrong.
I Don't Work, I Just Mess Around On The Internet aaanndd Baam!!
I was having a laugh with my brother the other day about how the emergence of cryptocurrency has made everything so easy and simplistic.
We were actually talking about unemployment and how crypto seems to be making that term redundant.
It was such a touchy subject for both of us because we understand what it means to be jobless/out of job and have no money for a long time.
When I was introduced to crypto, I was a willing student but even at that, I didn't think it was something anyone could do full time. I mean, it was so vague and so out there, and I am talking about 2017.
First, it was just about airdrops, then it was later about trading then it became about both because they seem to take turns in putting a smile on my face. It was just like that until I found out about the fun side of crypto which I didn't know existed. It is easy, it is fun and most importantly, it is rewarding.
The fun side I am talking about is blogging and crypto gaming. As much as writing isn't everyone's strong suit, I found it a relatively easier thing to do than trying to learn Technical Analysis and Fundamental Analysis. The rewards also proved to be more consistent than what I usually got from airdrops.
Then, the gaming is so easy it is actually quite ridiculous that you could actually lazy about, have fun and get paid too. What is the world turning into? LOL
Well, the world is going to shits and I am loving it. Long may it continue.
Before long, I was no longer lacking money, I mean I wasn't actually "working" but I was taking care of myself and those around me by merely messing around on the internet.
I officially stopped looking for any formal jobs, because what else is work when having fun was paying more than my last job did and would have paid more than any new thing I would have got (for context, I mean in my environment).
I wouldn't want to sound like a smart ass and I know everybody isn't gonna earn a living from crypto but I can't help but always feel sad when I see people barely earning a living by doing the most physically demanding jobs and earning in a month what I earn in two weeks, sitting in my house with just my phone and my laptop.
Well, it is a sad world anyways, everybody isn't gonna be happy and everybody isn't gonna be rich, so I let that sink in and focus on my own hustle. I have been lucky to find the light and I pray those closest to me get such luck in the future too.
I am extremely happy for my brother because he had it tougher than I did, and I am happy that finally, Satoshi gave him the breakthrough he was so desperately praying for. Now, he is stacking this crypto, staking some and Hodling some. He said crypto blogging is his main hustle now and airdropping the side one.
I had to laugh at that proclamation, but he was actually right because even I myself am fully invested in mainly writing and gaming, then every once in a while, I take part in one airdrop or the other, hoping something big comes.
Onboarding Through Gaming
I have always had it tough trying to onboard some of the people closest to me into the world of crypto. I am sure this situation isn't peculiar to me alone because I know a lot of us would love for our friends and family to come along in this journey of crypto revolution but how to go about introducing them to it becomes the ultimate tasking task.
First, not only would you at some point feel like splitting their heads right open and stuffing them with CRYPTO because of the way they are going to frustrate the hell out of you, but you are also going to be entirely responsible for the step by step growth at every level until the very top.
Even when they have known enough to explore on their own, they would always want to come to check with you to get your opinion before pulling the trigger on a particular decision. As much as this sounds like a thing of honour, trying to get your opinion every time can be infuriating and frustrating.
I know you would like to know why I am hell-bent on onboarding people I care about, why not just let them be. Well, I would really love to let them be, but with the financial situation around me at the moment, onboarding them isn't only a matter of the pride of introducing just another person into crypto but the thought of empowering another relative financially who would have ordinarily looked for a handout from me...another financial burden off my shoulder.
**THE ERRORS OF DOING IT TO THEM HOW IT WAS DONE TO ME**
I realised that I have been making the mistake of thinking that everybody is going to be able to string some of words together, upload and earn money because I can do it and have been doing it. I realised that blog posting isn't especially going to be everyone's forte.
I have been wrongly trying to onboard everybody through writing instead of trying to understand first what their strong points are. I have been even begged by some of them to please make short posts for them so they could post and get their account going. Phew!
I had obliged a few times but stopped when I realise that the growth that I intend to inspire, isn't gonna be achieved that way. I ultimately withdraw my support and watched from the backgrounds if they would be curious enough to figure things out themselves or not and know what decisions I had to make.
https://pixabay.com/photos/children-win-success-video-game-593313/
**PLAYING TO THEIR STRENGTHS**.
After I talked to a friend who wasn't so keen on writing but loved photography, I realised I could onboard her through noise.cash and its many photography channels and chambers. I did and it was really easy for both of us.
Easy for her to keep up because all she had to do was upload some of the very beautiful pictures she already had on her phone, make just a line of coherent write up a bit related to the image like she already does on Facebook and voila.
The little success I had with onboarding through noise.cash photography made me realise I could do more with games, I mean many people would be a lot more enthusiastic when you tell them they could play some virtual games and earn money while at it.
The Hive blogging platform offers a unique opportunity to onboard newbies into the crypto space. Because apart from the usual write to earn opportunities littered on the platform in terms of the different niche based front-ends it boasts, like Leofinance.io, weed.cash and sportstalksocial.com, there are also some very nice play to earn virtual games on the Hive blockchain. http://noise.cash/ http://weed.cash/
https://pixabay.com/photos/game-remote-gamer-video-2294201/
Games like Rabona which is a Soccer manager game, Splinterlands and dCity are some of the best crypto-based games on the hive blockchain which are better-suited for introducing people to crypto than the more tedious ways of writing which many newbies usually find difficult to cope with.
I have been playing Splinterlands for barely 3 weeks now and I have already got two of my friends interested and they can't wait to try it out.
Even though I am yet to start my football manager career with Rabon, because I want to get the absolute hang of Splinterlands first, I know some of my friends are absolutely going to love the idea of it, because I have some football-loving friends with whom I have played CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER with in the past, which is almost the same thing with Rabona but now there is the incentive of earning alongside.
I feel a lot more enthusiastic about trying again, to help some of the people I had given up on in the past when they weren't catching up with my old ways of onboarding. I know I am going to achieve a lot more success this way and I cant wait...I await them to get their laptops as they have said they would.
Scared Money Makes No Money: Crypto HODL Culture
DISCLAIMER:
1. This is not a financial advice
2. I am not a professional investment planner/consultant
3. You can do with your crypto whatever you please.
Now that we have that we have got that out of the way...
# WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU LET YOUR CRYPTO JUST SIT IN THOSE WALLETS DOING NOTHING?
I was speaking with my brother a while ago and I asked him, hey, aren't you gonna start making money from that stash of yours? He took part in some airdrops early this year and got some very good rewards for it. Well, he said Nah, I am gonna HODL it out, you see this is a very good project and I trust it's gonna moon soon. Hmmm
I said, yo' I get that you are trying to HODL and all but HODLing isn't really a great strategy at compounding wealth or Crypto for that matter which you so desperately want and have talked about for years. Why don't you send those coins to a Defi platform with a good reputation and either stake it or farm with it and get a good ROI? How are you gonna get rich if you are scared of investing?
He said, sometimes, HODLing is the best strategy, I said alright then. Peace.
I get that HODLing in the crypto industry is seen as a brave and honorable thing, especially when the assets you are HODLing went/is going through a tough phase and dumped/is dumping pretty badly like XRP during their legal issues. This 'show of faith' in said assets and their project is commendable but does it always make you money? Rarely.
Are you HODLing because you are scared of loss or you actually have some scheme up your sleeve? Another perspective for thought...
Sometimes we read about people who had their BTC when it wasn't up to $1 per BTC and we say hey, that guy is so damn lucky he didn't sell all those years ago. Yeah, you could say that and you'd be vindicated, but a lot has changed since then. Back then, it was just BTC at the center of everything Cryptocurrency, people even rarely traded it then. Those who had it just locked it away and that was it. Safe to say BTC had little or no use back then.
# WHAT ABOUT NOW?
Now, there are millions of projects out there and that means millions of coins and tokens vying and competing for the chance to be at the forefront, to be on everybody's lips, on every exchange, on every wallet. (reason we have shillers) What does this mean in effect? This means that a coin/project would have to be really special or have some high-profile persons shilling it to keep the price on a steady rise. That means it might be a while before all your HODL turn into something worthwhile but if you put them to work, it would take but a short while before you start seeing some compounding and actual increase in your stash.
So you are just gonna leave those coins in your wallet, waiting for them to do a BTC? If your answer is in the affirmative, then you will have to wait for a while because BTC paid its WAITING price. But why just wait when you can put your coins to good use, make some good profits, and compound your gains. Makes sense yet?
What I am saying is, you could invest, make some profits, and from your profits, you buy and stack up those particular coins you think are going to make you rich. You get it now right?
Crypto is actually a digital machine that has presented us with so many financial opportunities that it is actually crazy but a lot of people still wanna operate it as an analog machine.
I staked the little BNB I have on my Binance and every day, I get TLM (another crypto) in my spot wallet as my staking reward and the sweet spot is, TLM rose from $0.45 to $0.75 within that period, BNB was also mooning. This means that while my original BNB stake is in the vault working out my TLM rewards, it is still fattening up from the rise in the price of BNB. Isn't that just tasty?
Airdrop Blessings & Gas Fees Irritation
Last week, I got one of the biggest surprises of my Crypto life and it is all thanks to an Airdrop I participated in in 2018. I had been nagging to a couple of friends how I had lost the backup phrases to some of my old wallets from 2017, recounting the coins I had in them and how much they are worth in today's market. If you don’t know how that feels, wait till you send BTC to an ETH wallet, then you understand that feeling of despair and hopelessness.
I had been complaining for a while, oblivious of the fact that I had some nice shiny Lend token sitting in my Eido wallet. Truth be told, I cant recall exactly how I got this Lend token, but I just know I had them and they were worth around $7 as at the time they hit my wallet. (For clarity sake, I got 87 Lend tokens) So I didn’t know what to do with them then, because they were almost worthless, so I just forgot about them.
Now, Imagine my surprise when I re-downloaded Eido out of curiosity to see what I might still have there, typed in my Phrases and saw $322 staring at me. #Mindblown. I started fiddling with my phone in haste, trying to scroll to the bottom of the wallet to see which token exactly had that value attached to it and behold, it was the once worth-less Lend.
Well, I came to understand that Lend as a project had been migrated to another project Aave and to sell or trade my Lend, I would have to Migrate it. The developers were giving 1 Aave for every 100 Lend tokens and I had 87, so I was expecting something like 0.87 Aave, which was 13 Lends short of 1 whole Aave (1 Aave = $365 as at last week, before the market dipped).
I started researching how I was going to migrate and eventually sell my Lend. I talked to my brother and he advised I look for Aave's developing team on twitter or Telegram and chat them up and see what they say. It sounded so straightforward, but believe me, it wasn’t because I rigmaroled a bit, trying to get Aave's developing team. Finally I stumbled upon their site and finally figured the way to Migrate it and I said fuck it, no need talking to any developing team, I can just do this myself - this wasn’t straight forward at all either.
Now to the crux of the matter and the main point of my article; first of all, to initiate migration, I connected my eido to the Migration page, and they required I had at least 0.05242 ETH for gas fee. Blimey! That’s almost $100 and I am trying to migrate token worth around $323? That doesn’t make any sense at all.
I signalled back to my brother, told him what was happening and he concurred with me that the gas fee was absolute madness. He suggested I tried later in the night or wait till weekend since ETH transaction fees are usually low in the nights and during the weekends.
Ladies and gents, that was how I sat on my computer for 3 days, monitoring gas fee, waiting for when it would reduce reasonably so I could engage, but it never did. The lowest it went was 0.035 ETH which was still high when you consider the worth of the transaction in question.
I understand that gas fees could be manually tweaked to accommodate whatever you are willing to spend in gas fees but the catch is, it takes longer than normal for such tweaked transactions to go through and having assumed it was going to be a day tops, I was willing to wait rather than pay such ridiculous amounts in gas.
My plan was to wait till the gas fee drops to 0.035 ETH again, because I didnt engage migration the last time it went that low, then I tweak to 0.027 and hopefully the migration goes through. Here I was seriously banking on hope, far too much for my liking.
I was running out of patience fast because I had been trying to migrate my tokens for 3 days and counting and there seemed no cheap solution in sight. So I asked a vendor friend of mine to send 0.027 ETH to my Eido so I could tweak and initiate Migration from the Aave migration page. He told me to wait so he could check price and transfer fees. Soon enough he got back to me and to send 0.027 ETH to my wallet, he had to pay a transaction fee of 0.008 ETH, so in other words, what would be hitting my wallet would be 0.019 ETH. Sigh
So to get 0.027 ETH in my wallet, I had to pay for 0.035 ETH and 0.008 would be deducted as charges. Well, since I had already set things in motion, I went ahead with this quotation.
Finally I got 0.027 Eth in my eido wallet, which had cost me around $67, transaction fees included. At this point, the migration fee on Aave website has risen back to 0.042 Eth but since my plans were to tweak the fees, I didnt care.
I finally intitated migration with a tweaked gas fee but the migration just wouldnt go through, I wasnt even getting any actionable response from the page.
I grew so firsutrated that I felt like smashing something, because I had been doing this thing for almost 5 days and I sincerely couldnt give a situation report if someone had asked for it. I was just stuck on one particular page and the Aave site kept refreshing gas fees for me up and down.
At this point I had enough, I saw a message Icon by the left hand side of the page I was at, and it finally dawned on me that I clicking that Icon was the first thing I should have done before I even bought Ethereum for gas. I had been stubborn and desperate and I felt like a blind man going on a walk on his own in the streets of New York. Hahahahaha. I have never been to the US by the way.
I wrote to the responder on the message Icon and few minutes later, Pablo (Heavens bless him) responded and gave me all the information I needed. As a matter of fact, he directed me away from their site, Aave, if I wanted to make a quicker migration, free of charges. Really?
It turned out, I could have just sent my Lend to Binance and with one click, converted to Aave in 10 seconds, without any migration fees. Oh dear! Plus, Pablo said while Migrating tokens, that I shouldnt tweak the gas fee at all, which is why it never did go through.
So in trying to migrate through Aave Migration portal, I paid a price of around $30, that is for sending 0.027 Eth (cost 0.008 Eth) to my Eido and transferring out my 87 lend to Binance (cost 0.0048 Eth) and also sending back the remaining Ethereum I ended up not using to my Binance (cost 0.00256). Which brings my total expenses in gas fees to 0.15 Eth worth approximately $30. For something I eventually did for free on Binance, these expenses were a bitter pill to swallow.
This wasnt the crypto we were promised, crypt was supposed to make things easier. In fact, if in the early days of crypto adoption Ethereum fees were this high, Nocoiners and crypto critics would have been presented with a rope to hang Crypto by Ethereum and if the fees of gas was this high back in the day, then Ethereum as a project might not have seen $1,700 in price. Do you still wonder why every new project is switching over to the Binance network and why BNB as a project is on the rise? What the hell has happened to Ethereum? Why does it cost so much for coins under their network to interact with every other coin?
By the way, I converted my Lend to Aave on Binance and it was as easy as ctrl + C to ctrl+ V. It was that quick, that fast and effortless. I got 0.87 trade-able, withdraw-able Aave worth $322 in my Binance wallet
Daddy-Daughter Journal
6-11-2020
I met Nanu, a friend of ours who was pregnant same time as your mum. You are about 3 weeks older than her daughter and you guys have a picture together, mum carried both of you side by side her two arms.
She told me she had stopped breastfeeding her daughter for about a month now and here we are still trying to figure out a way to wean you from breastfeeding. Did I mention that you were too attached to your mum, she couldn't even go to the toilet without you chasing after her. I am talking about from when you started crawling to when you were walking. Many times you had chased after her, end up with her carrying you, sitting on the toilet. LOL. Many times...
Anyway, Nanu told me how she had stopped breastfeeding her baby and encouraged me to get your mum to stop too. I got home and gave your mum update, LOL...We agreed to start that night.
Mum fed you pap that night, close to bedtime, so you could go to bed full before the night battle starts(you suck more at nights than any other time,in fact you sleep with nipple in your mouth).
So it started, mum wore her brazzier to bed, you were officially denied access to the breast henceforth. LOL.
The night was a noisy one, you cried so loud in the dead of the night when you signaled for breast and was denied. You were instead offered a small pouch of Hollandia Youghurt which you rejected vehemently with even louder cry. Hahahaha...we really had a long and unpleasant night.
We would let you cry for a while, then offer you water,which seemed to work.
9-11-2020
It's been 3 nights now since mum stopped breastfeeding you. It's been tough having seemless night sleep, just like it was the first couple of months after you were born. You don't sleep much and we don't sleep much, you are cranky and pissed - as a new born, It had to do with stomach upset from your yet to dry umbilical cord, now at 1 year and 2 months, it's about denying you access to breast milk. LOL
I woke up to shower at 3 am and I think my noise in the bathroom woke you up, because your sleep routine is no longer smooth as it used to be when you used to have nipple in your mouth all night. Now you wake up and find it difficult to go back to sleep. I came out of the bathroom and you were wide awake, sitting and already playing with the Samsung Tab on the bed. I wore my clothes and was ready to head out to the dining where my desk is to do some writing.
Guess what happens next...yeah, you wanted to come along, you always love to tag along. You always know when someone wants to step out and you usually just either stretch out both hands begging to be carried along or you come close and hug the persons legs. Your mum and I would call it "Sugar's arrest". Hahaha
Well, you stretched out this time, from atop the bed, beckoning on me to pick you up. You usually always have your way when you do things like that and if I had left without you, all hell would have broken loose, it was 3 in the morning.
I carried you in my arms out in the living room, I just knew there wasnt going to be any writing for me, so I just put on the TV and we watched African Magic. They were showing a movie and I think the theme song captivated you and you were quiet and focused on the screen. We just stood right in front of the TV and your attention was still locked on it. When you loosened up a bit, we went into the kitchen and I dished out a little jollof rice mum cooked last night. You seemed to like rice a lot and since your usual breast-milk snacking was now off the menu, getting you to eat in the middle of the night seemed like a good idea.
You ate half of the rice I dished out and drank a lot of water, and we sat back on the couch watching the same movie. I felt you getting drowsy and sleepy again but getting you to actually sleep became an uphill task, as it usually is.
I took you back into the room to get you to sleep, nope, didnt work...your mum tried singing lullabies for you, didnt work, I carried you on arms, trying to rock you to sleep, still no luck. It can be really frustrating because you were actually very sleepy but you just cant do the honorable thing and just close your eyes like everyone else does. You usually want to suck yourself to sleep, but no more sucking young woman.
I lost my cool trying to tame you and I dumped you with mum and ran away to the parlor. Gosh! Well, she rocked you a little and you finally slept. The time was almost 6 in the morning.
Well, I still managed to write this 9-11-2020 to this point, after watching one of my favorite programs on Channel 12 on the Cable TV - Chef Gone Wild.
I guess the morning wasn't entirely lost. Lets see what the day holds for us all.
The day wasn't as eventful as the beginning had suggested, but it was okay, everyday isn't supposed to be eventful. Oh, I gave you toothpaste. Yeah, you have a liking for the minty feeling from a freshly brushed mouth, so whenever I or your mum finishes brushing our teeth, we purposely talk into your nostrils so you can smell it, and you usually chase after us to continue the routine or to lick our lips. LOL.
So I gave you toothpaste just to keep you occupied/distracted, because mum was busy in the bathroom and you were eager to go in there with her...she was washing the bathroom.
You would lick the paste, pout your lips and blow out air from your mouth like someone who just finished a nice plate of hot pepper-soup. The sight of you doing this is always funny and I would laugh out really hard.
I have been meaning to write down that you had started understanding words and phrases. Little hints of this was when you were still about 10-12 months old. You started with signalling 'bye-bye' and 'clap for yourself', then you started responding to 'give me a kiss' by drawing your mouth close to mine or your mum's, depending on who is saying it.
Now you can understand a more complex communication, like "go and give it to mummy" "go and give it to daddy". You understand and act accordingly...can you believe you are already running errands at 1 year and 2 months old? Hahaha! We usually say "go and give it to daddy/mummy when you start bugging us with your pink sandals. You always bring your sandals to me or your mum to help you put it on, and when we might not be in the mood, we just say go give it to daddy/mummy, depending on who the lazy person is at the time. Hahaha
You also always take phones from me to your mum and vice versa. We both use same phones - Gionee M5 Mini and you seem to know which belonged to whom.
You say - THANK YOU - whenever something is given to you, sometimes you say same on those occasions where you bring phones or sandals to us. You say it like - A-I-N K-H-U with a pouted lips.
@Morning_Star
