15,000 sp delegation challenge awards!

Original contest post here!

We heard from a lot of folks about their own relationships and dreams with Steemit.

Steemit definitely has that addictive reward-based pull for me, too. I am one of those artists you mention who loves doing so many things I never feel that my talents are fully utilized or my values are fully reflected in any job, nor are my interests the kinds of things that our world commercially rewards. So that pie in the sky dream of "maybe I could just post about all the things I am so actually passionate about and want to make a difference in and maybe make enough of a living to get by" appeals to me, too. Big time. It also scares me, that addictive pull. That excitement has kept me up nights, woken me up in the middle of sleep, distracted me from other things that really need attention, and at it's scariest, I worried that it could pull me away from the in-person world of direct experience and physically-co-created relationship that is what really nourishes and sustains me and the world.
- @jaredwood

When I share my opinions, my ideas, my plans, my dreams, my beliefs, the people around me do not understand or call me a utopian ... I always felt different ... And I calmly stopped sharing, because I was too sad and hurt not to be understood, not to be welcomed, to disturb when I was The real me ... The people around me seemed to appreciate the Louise "who cares" rather than Louise "who has ideas and dreams". Lately I had to go to the obvious: a burning fire burns in me and I need to share it, it is essential, it is urgent, my soul claims it! So I turned to the internet to reach people ready to listen and welcome all I have to share and offer. And one fine day, I discovered Steemit!!!! Wow!! A thunderbolt!! A treasure trove of people who share my ideas, who resemble me in their desire to share, help and make the world better!!!
- @nature.sauvage

How can Steemit and I have a balanced relationship, where I'm not thinking about her all the time...and instead, I don't even notice 'her', because I'm so in love with all of the ideas and thoughts, and games, and stories coming from her PEOPLE!!??!?!" We have to evolve social media here to actually CONTRIBUTE VALUE, and of course to REGENERATE OUR RELATIONSHIPS with all beings around us, in reality of here in the interweb reality. Steemit could be a platform for that awesome shit if we make it that. It could be a platform from which to fly, from which to fall, to win, to lose...basically to be on the journey that is but an extension of our lives here on this plane. How are we going to show up? With our FULL POTENTIAL and Promising Beyond Capacity so that we give ourselves the chance...nay, the opportunity! to RISE TO MEETING THIS ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE TO BE FORCES FOR REGENERATION WITH ALL OUR FUCKING FORCE! OUR FIERCE LOVE OF EACHOTHER & THIS PLANET WE CALL MOTHER!!!!!
- @ladylunasi

I feel like I've had a pretty unbalanced start as well. And holy fuck I do the same thing with post rewards EVEN AFTER I posted this article about how Steemit was about the content, NOT the payout. You even commented and we spoke about how we both struggle with this. Haha I'm like you in that I sort of dive all the way into something when I'm attracted to it and it's hard to separate yourself and remember that you have a life and there's awesome sunsets to see OUTSIDE. I'm working on that everyday.
- @chrissymchavez

I'm loving my time here so far, I was kind of getting bored with some of the stale perceptions that seem to pervade other areas of social media and so Steemit has been a breath of fresh air. It's given me hope of a potential future where a technologically savy populace wrestle financial control away from the banking institutions and create their own self-sustaining monetary system .. I can dream can't I? lol. I enjoy the exchange of ideas and concepts I've never thought about or considered, I'm also really grateful to have a platform to share my own thoughts and writing. Some of the derivative video shares and vacuous posts can be a little annoying, but I'm not here to judge so just move along quickly. The main struggle I'm having is finding a work, life, Steem writing, Steem community balance but it's all a learning curve so that's cool.
- @perceptualflaws

For sure, everything isn't perfect. Sometimes I am feeling a bit sad, especially when I compare my relationship and the one the others. Some people doesn't work as hard as me and their relationship seems to go smoothly, better than mine. Sometimes I am asking myself : " WHY, but WHY, this isn't working so well for me even if I am spending so much time on the article, even if I am writing good article (Hopefully, I believe in me and my capacitie-abilities. But sometimes, Steemit can make you lose your self-confidence very quickly). I am asking myself: WHY is it always harder for me ? " So yes, sometimes I am jealous. But I really want everything to work, so I just try... again.
- @roxane

I can say that I feel very honored to be connected with with so many brave, intelligent, caring, and crazy humans here. Wherever this Steem train is headed, I'm glad that I'm going there with you all.

For the winners of our SBD, the post reward was $60SBD. I'm actually going to upgrade that a bit and do 300 SBD instead of 200. The chosen and random winners of SBD are @nature.sauvage, @yaan, and @jaredwood.

thankyou each kindly for accepting this little token of support in your own endeavors

For the winners of our SP Delegations, totalling 10,000 sp for three weeks.

nominate ONE PERSON on Steemit who is focused on encouraging, uplifting, appreciating, and building up OTHERS over themselves.

We had a LOT of excellent nominations, and I enjoyed spending five hours going through them all to pick out a winner. In this, I've also decided on adding one additional winner in, for a total of three random and chosen. The winners are @photo-trail nominated by @chrissymchavez, and @tremendospercy nominated by @perceptualflaws!!!!
I have decided to delegate an additional 5k sp to @treeplanter bot run by @kedjom-keku. If you want to send people upvotes and plant trees at the same time, definitely check them out.

Alright everyone, thank you all for sharing your lovely thoughts here. I feel really grateful to be here with y'all right now. Here's to a beautiful future!!!