<center>![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQnyrffX6JT2wiBsidPnoffHEhHskPHDCpj1hc7CMdtYA/image.png)
<sup>Photo taken by me @flaws</sup></center>

## A brief presentation

At first glance it doesn't seem that a 16-year-old boy can have a complicated life, I mean: we are in a stage where we don't have so many responsibilities or obligations, our mom (or aunt in my case) make our food, wash our clothes, etc. But unfortunately, this is not the case everywhere.

I live with my uncles since I was born. 4 years ago I began to study and try to learn how to earn money using the Internet, this incredible tool is the one that allowed me to know the cryptocurrencies when the BTC was at 400-800 USD and, although I never could invest due to my economic situation and my age, I managed to get very small amounts of money that were growing as I was learning and diving more and more in this world.

But not everything is rosy: There are always good times and bad times, I suffered too much to get to where I am now and although I know I have a long way to go, I feel that I am a better person compared to what I was before and I still have an eagerness to improve. I want to be able to see the great difference that can exist between people's lives and for this reason, I consider that empathy is a great resource that you have to know how to use to be able to understand other people, so: If you want to know how the year of a 16-year-old Venezuelan boy can be, this post is definitely for you.


## 2019 didn't start so well

Well, the year started badly but not because of anything that happened at that time, I had a very strong family loss in October 2018, a 14-year-old cousin died and cases like that break my heart. It is very painful to think that he had a lot of life ahead of him and that all the dreams he had have been taken away, now just thinking that this person was part of my family and was a cousin with whom I had a lot of attachment, was one of the strongest emotional blows I've had in all my life.

*I don't want to show pictures of him because I feel uncomfortable with it, I'm sorry*

<center>![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPvhwXFaZjPkdUVc5F1f4GKW8ZLmZzwXoqcTnuvWd86M7/image.png)
<sup>I miss you, Salvador. Photo taken by me @flaws</sup></center>

### January

The first month of the year was not at all nice because of this, I could hardly concentrate on any activity and Steem was no exception. The articles I was posting at that time (and also throughout the year, I will explain it better soon) were simply useless and did not contribute anything to the community, which is why I had never been active in the community.

All my "reputation" in the projects I worked on before I built it in August 2018 if I remember correctly, so at the beginning of the year I didn't make any effort to do anything for the community because I didn't see it as necessary and I wasn't interested at that time either. Yes, I'm being honest about how I saw things at the time, but there's nothing I can do to change my past.

**But how did it go in the end?** In my personal life, I improved a lot because I met a special person for me, well, you know how young people are when it comes to falling in love and well, I met a person with whom I felt completely encouraged and simply needed nothing more than her. To this day I'm still with her and just knowing a person who fills you with joy just by having her around is incredible, I feel that I can't do things right if I have a low mood, so having a person who can cheer you up and support you in everything is just something I needed.

## The rest of the year 

I continued working after a few months, another of the most incredible things that happened to me this year happened in May, *I advance to you that has to do with love again*.

<div class="pull-right">https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZJAcuDJddYGjnkX8DrHxD3XHFr3G4d4umkEVTGsTkudY/image.png
<center><sup>Yep, she is the girl I love</sup></center></div>

Never in my life had I been so attached to a person, every 15th is the birthday of that person so special to me, that's why for the first time in my life I decided to do something special to that person as a token of my appreciation for her. Thanks to the income I got from Steem, I managed to get a considerable amount of money to make a box full of candy and a lot of things like that. This gift was made by her best friend and me, she was in charge of decorating the box and adding a few more things to make it incredible. It is very difficult for me to make money due to my age and the economic situation of my country, but I always try to do what I can to help my family and also make the people around me happy.

Returning to Steem: I kept doing the same, publishing using SteemPress (which was my main source of income) and publishing for Oracle-D (YooDoo actually). I did nothing more than that over the months and I recognize that I was simply a mediocre user when talking about the type of content I posted. My day to day in Steem was to enter, publish and be active in the Discord communities, I didn't see other people's content (unless I was forced to) or just that would benefit me in some way or another, don't be that kind of users please, Steem is a super nice community and it's really nice to meet amazing people here.

<center>![Screenshot_183.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSENdpLsqRAsGh9d4UAX5jJoevgtqmbfwX42X7KudoC6i/Screenshot_183.png)
<sup><a href="https://blocktrades.us/trade">blocktrades.us</a> homepage</sup></center>


## One of the things that caused me the most happiness

The same year I managed to get a new job at Steem and, without a doubt, it was one of the things that brought me the most happiness in the year and in my life in general: I started working with @blocktrades.

BlockTrades is an incredible platform to make exchanges between cryptocurrencies in a really simple and fast way, there are no complications in its use and it is well known in Steem, that's why I thought: Wouldn't it be nice to have the BlockTrades info (in English) available in other languages? And I set out to send them an email asking what they thought of the idea, it was a very tense day because I was eating my head off thinking about what they could tell me and when I got their reply email, it was undoubtedly one of the most incredible things that have happened to me in all my life: I started working with BlockTrades!

At first, the plan was to translate all the information on its blocktrades.us platform into Spanish. It was the first thing I did and after a few months I already had all the guides on the page translated into Spanish, I did my best and tried to do the best job possible, I mean, I was working for @blocktrades, how could I fail at that? Although the project had several changes throughout its development, from my perspective it was a complete success, the project expanded to other languages and, although at first, it was a little disorganized, things got better as everything progressed. 

> Currently anyone can access the guides on the page and see if their language is available. Want to take a look? You can enter <a href="https://blocktrades.us/support/home/help/translations?questionsPath=">here </a> and see the articles in your language without any problem!


*Okay, this already sounds like a promotional post.*

<center>![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUzfoUUn6D5pjJppgcfiHoWbkpVsoVxPD4NFAYCgigZZ7/image.png)
<sup>Photo taken by me @flaws</sup></center>

## Beginning to decay

Well, after several months of doing everything I used to do and staying stable, things started to happen that hit me hard both emotionally and financially. In my personal life, I had discussions with the girl who supported me in everything and that made me feel very bad personally, which caused me not to feel like joining Steem or doing anything related to work or studies. Then in Steem I also started to decline. I stopped posting articles for SteemPress because I was forced to do so, I just couldn't do it anymore because they were mediocre and worthless articles, the BlockTrades project also ended and I simply ran out of a source of income, I was devastated, the situation in my country was getting worse much faster and I started to run out of ideas, I was in an emotional and economic crisis that made me doubt my capabilities. 

But being in these situations makes us reflect: How would we know when we are happy if we do not know what it is like to be sad? I believe that to be successful you have to go through many failures and this is part of growing up, I am only 16 years old so my way of seeing things tells me that I just have to face this and move on. 

### An idea that really seems promising to me! 

During my existential crisis, I was participating in a chess tournament to get away from everything and my coach said: "Hey Jean, what do you say we work with Steem to do more chess tournaments?" At first, I thought it was stupid because what benefit could that give Steem? I ignored it for a few days and my coach told me again, this time I replied "Okay, I'll think about it a little bit" And well, I began to work on organizing a whole tremendous idea to benefit Steem and also the chess community in my country. I already made a post about it and, if you check my blog, you will surely find it :)

*The point is: No matter how lost you feel, there is always an opportunity to shine as long as you set your mind to it. My year was a simple roller coaster, that's what life is all about, you just have to keep in mind that there is a balance and that not everything will be bad times. Fight for what you want and surely you will reach it, do not doubt in you.*

<center>![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmP6yzLcYJAgDWSWov3qDAoSQmmAWttVv6FerDF9ys3XW2/image.png)
Photo taken by me @flaws</center>

## Concluding this story

I was very excited to write this article, but I took advantage of it to make a personal recapitulation of everything I have lived this year. It's the first time I've done something like this and it feels good to recognize that everything in life is a roller coaster. 

This last month of the year I will dedicate myself to trying to integrate more into the community and meet more amazing people around here. Thank you so much for reading this whole article! If you also created an incredible story, don't hesitate to leave a link and I'd love to read it. 

Also many thanks to @anomadsoul for organizing this initiative and for giving us this opportunity, it is a very nice initiative and you should also encourage yourself to participate in it (although I think I did this article a little late, hopefully, you have time, you have until 18/12/2019 23:59 PST)

Cheers!