Like every new steemian, I did struggle when I first started out on steemit. There was a lot of frustration, a lot of hardwork and dedication before I found my feet on steemit. And once I did, everything was exponential from there on. My steem power grew rapidly. It took me effectively around just 6 months to reach over 900 steem power, with over 150 SBD (worth over 600 steem at that point) still in place in my account.

The Beginning...

...was very difficult. My first 21 posts collectively did not even sum up to one single dollar! It was probably around 60 cents...including curation rewards for the curators. So effectively 30 cents! 30 cents for the first 21 posts, can you imagine!

One of the first memes I made. Made out of sheer frustration!

It did NOT get easier any soon!

No, the next posts did not start making $4-5 each. Far from that! It took me another 10-12 posts before I hit jackpot, the post that pulled me back from the verge of quitting steemit. It made around $16-17. I can't explain how elated I was when I saw the huge upvotes I got on that post!

I finally found my Niche!

I was a medical student at that time (Now Gladly A Doctor!). I wasn't really into photography but I saw a lot of photography posts being rewarded pretty well and it didn't seem like a lot of work to me. I gave posting my lame-ass amateur photography quite a bit at the beginning. Needless to say, it failed miserably!

I enjoyed making memes and I find making memes super easy. But as a beginner I just couldn't get any significant attention on my memes (I posted a LOT of memes at the start!).

I started to realize, maybe taking shortcuts was not the way to go on steemit! You gotta go with your passion and put in hard work. You see where I'm going with this?

Yeah, being a medical student, writing articles on medical sciences should have been the first thing I tried on steemit. I was passionate about what I do. I used to tutor my fellow classmates for free, explaining them complex topics in ways that doesn't get simpler and I was quite popular among my friends for this! Most Importantly, I enjoyed explaining what I've learned!

But writing an article on science takes a lot of effort! Oh boy it does! The sheer amount of studying you gotta do...organising the topic, referencing, crediting images! (Of course I didn't know any of these at that point LOL!).

So I got to writing. I made my first post on the basic structure of kidneys. Nada, nothing!

Didn't give up so soon, thankfully!

The next post changed everything for me on steemit!

No, it wasn't an astonishingly written wonderful article that blew everyone away! It was a decent article at best! What changed everything was a comment on that article from @ruth-girl

I don't know if I ever really thanked her for that, but here it is! Thank you @ruth-girl for showing me the way on steemit!

She was a curator of @steemstem at that point and she had some really nice things to say about the post. She never for once mentioned she was a curator of such an influential team. She very kindly pointed out some the grammatical errors and lack of references I had in the article. I gladly accepted and assured her I'll add references from my next article. But she Insisted I edit and add the references to that post itself, saying it wasn't too late. What I didn't know was, she was correcting my post to take it up to the standards of @steemstem
Because she approached so gently, I decided no harm in editing. So I did. And then magic happened!

I saw a comment from @mobbs and I had received an upvote from steemstem! He is a celebrity on steemit and most of you guys probably know him already, but he is a wonderful guy! Helped me out through a lot and boy did I annoy him so much! Sorry for all of that bro, but thank you so much for all the support!

And there was a whole new world for me to discover! Until that point, I didn't know of the existence of @steemstem
It was like I found my home on steemit! And then my very next post made over $100 and since then there was really no looking back!

Early March of 2018, SteemSTEM decided to appoint mentors from the authors who had been posting regular quality content. I was honored to have been given that role! We even had our footers!

I was flying. I was a Mentor and a Reference Scientist in one of the most highly educated community on steemit, @steemstem
Being in that kind of respected position in a community filled with established physicist, biochemists, professors and so and so forth was definitely the highlight and the peak of my steemit career.

It was only a matter of time before I reached the 1000 SP landmark. (Remember, the price of steem was very high at that time, around $2-3 if i'm not mistaken. So 1K SP was a lot, a LOT of money, at least it was for me)

But as it so often happens, every high is followed by a low! Every peak has it's valley!

And so did I. Life hit me real hard. There aren't words I could use to explain the phase I had to go through. There was real life matters to take care of. Nothing was going my way and not one, not two, not three....about 5-6 storms hit me in a matter of weeks and before I knew it, I was spiraling down a never ending cave of darkness. Depression overtook me so bad, there was no making heads or tails of my life. And within all of these I completed my university graduation work, appeared for my medical license exam and started working as a full time doctor.

So the @simplifylife that was earmaked to reach 1000 SP by april, just less than 8 months after joining steemit, made his last post on steemit on the 2nd of april, for almost 2 years!

I didn't reply to the numerous messages I received on discord from friends. I didn't feel like doing anything. I didn't enjoy writing anymore. Nothing was fun. Typical symptoms of Depression.

Why did I come back then?

I don't know if I'm completely out of my depression yet or not. I logged back into steemit to convert my SBD into steem and cash out to fiat. I needed the money to pay for an online question bank (which are pretty expensive for the medical exams if you didn't know). I did and when I was done with the exchange, for some reason I hung around. I started visiting my old feed, looking up people I used to follow and I found myself reading again! I still wasn't sure If i wanna be back yet. But I'm currently taking a break from work. I'm mostly home studying most of the time. I thought this might be as good a time there ever will be if I wanna start writing again.

And so I put pen to paper (read fingers to the keyboard). I wasn't sure if I was gonna fly as I was, but luckily enough for me, my posts were received back with a warm welcome and almost every post I have made since making my return has made a decent enough payout. I heartily thank all the communities that have supported me especially the @bdcommunity and @ocdb and ofcourse @steemstem

And Here I am, Finally on the peak I was supposed to climb 2 years ago! Next landmark : 1500 SP!

I believe there's always a lesson to be learned from stories of struggle. Take what you want from my story!

With the Communities now launched, I have been interacting with more members from the different communities and I hope to make regular content for the various wonderful communitites that are beginning to blossom!

If you enjoy medical topics, or want to learn how different things work in this amazing human body, please make sure to follow me at @simplifylife

I also address current issues and updates on steemit in simple, easily understandable manner! If that is something that interests you, follow me at @simplifylife

If you like Simplistic Logos To Use at the end of your posts and want one for yourself, let me know in the comments or shoot me a DM on discord (simplifylife#8338)

Until Next Time!

Peace!