Weekend Engagement - Dance In The Rain

Explain a time when you were not happy with your own performance; what happened and why, how did you handle it and what was the result.

Hmm, this prompt actually made me reflect on my entire life quite a bit. And I realised, fortunately, I didn't have much instances in my life. That's not to say my life is all smooth sailing, but I tend to have a more carefree mindset. I focus on what I can control, and do my best. And for things that are out of my control, I always remind myself not to spend too much time worrying about it.

Since we are on Hive, maybe I will share a instance that was related to Hive. I probably would have repeated this story a hundred times - I discovered Hive because of Splinterlands. So when I started on Hive, it was totally foreign to me, but the idea that people can earn dollars from writing stuff fascinated me. And like some people who started out, I thought it was "easy money".

But in reality, it wasn't the case. Even though I put in effort to learn about how Hive worked, and tried my best to write interesting posts, I was not getting any attention. Little or no comments. Very little votes. It was very discouraging of course. I experienced a mixture of reactions at that time, fluctuating from whether I am doing things right and how should I improve, to the other extreme, where I pondered if content creating is something suitable for me and maybe I should just call it quits.

Sometimes I am too stubborn for my own good. In the end, I didn't quit and stuck around. Gradually, people started to notice me, I started to make friends and expanded my friends list on Hive. At the end of my first 3 months, I accumulated 113 Hive Power and 105 HBD. It wasn't a lot but when I saw this, it reminded me how far I have come, accumulating bit by bit every single post.

It has been more than 3 years since I started on Hive. And my mindset has changed. Fast forward to today, as cliche as it sounds, I have stopped chasing votes and following. It doesn't mean I don't care about votes or rewards, but these are not my motivation why I am here everyday engaging people. Over the years, I find myself enjoying the process, sharing my experiences, reading interesting posts by others, and it's just a fun virtual place to hang out. If the votes come, that's great and I am very appreciative of the curators. But if the votes don't come, that's perfectly okay. Take these Weekend Engagement posts for example, sometimes I get big votes from @curangel, sometimes I don't, and I am still here week in week out if I feel inspired to write something about the prompts.

Perhaps my thinking is more unconventional. In any case, without the fixation on the quantum of votes, it's definitely more stress-free and it's aligned with my mindset in life as well, to focus on what you can control (the content I write, my engagement with others, etc) and not worry about things I cannot control (votes, rewards, etc). Just enjoy the process and have fun.

As the saying goes, "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain."