Upvoting Your Own Post??

minnows like me upvote themselves because it is discouraging to see $0.00 under a post. sometimes i upvote my own posts just to encourage myself to keep going. i love to find/write interesting articles and share them with steemians. do we really earn money from self votes? if so, a whale can make 40$ in a day with his/her own upvotes? this looks really stupid if the system works the way i understand. maybe my question is stupid i dont know :) i am new here, a little explanation would be awesome :)