***Pardon my *typos*. I don't have the patience to read through this piece a hundred times which is the amount of time I need to proofread lengthy posts like this one.***

Unfortunately, I let this old grumpy man get to me. It just seems like yesterday, I was staring at one of his shitty posts--a picture, with over $8 in reward. Wow! Even my shit posts take more effort you know. It might not be as professional or detailed as I would when writing something important but the effort is there at least to entertain or education or even make myself feel good sometimes. So staring at his post like I have done a thousand times before, even upvoting sometimes to earn part of the curation reward. Yes, I am greedy and opportunistic when need be. Unfortunately trying to maximize every opportunity without thinking of its effect on your source and the communities built around this tiny reward pool is the reason why we are where we are currently. A lot of us did not like what was going on but we had to take advantage of the situation at least for the sanity of the Blockchain.

So like I was saying, staring at his post perplexed, I wondered:

*Should I do it?
Should I not?
I can as well keep making money here and mind business*

Unfortunately for me, I am a very impulsive person. So I was in the moment and I clicked the downvote bottom. 

I spent the following week looking over my shoulders.

*When is he going to strike?*

Then I saw his post about turning a new leaf. And you know what? I was so optimistic about steem at the point. I felt we were all coming together to achieve something great. At that point, a lot of bid bot owners started to curate manually. I received some nice upvote during that period and for me, it was a sign of better things to come. I was wrong.

Haejin struck. *Oopsy!*

At that point, my heart sunk into my stomach. There was no going back. I had seen what he had done to people like @adetorrent and I felt hopeless, well, not entirely. I still had this hope that the steem community will come to our(my) rescue since we were all a happy family now with only haejin being the black sheep. Unfortunately that never really happened. @justineh came to my aid at some point but it was not enough to upset haejin flags. And at the same time, my business was taking a nosedive, so basically, all my plans began to shatter and I began to sell again. Coupled with my indifference which is justified because after the hardfork it seemed like we were on the right path, everyone was working together, people putting in work were getting recognized. Unfortunately, things began to stall and I felt we just took one step forward and two backward. We were back to the status quo with a different reward curve/mechanism. People were still posting to earn not necessarily because they had something to say, which often leads to creative fatigue. My only solution to this is that people earn more for doing better work but curating is based on individual preferences, that's not something we can control completely, so I guess this issue will tarry for a long time.

Going back haejin. I think we allowed a simpleton amass so much power to think he is invincible. I think that's what he thinks in his head. Coupled with his animosity, he can do whatever he wants here without having a daint on his reputation. Clearly, he does not care about steem and what some of us hope to build here. This is just another crypto-grabbing opportunity for him which he does at the detriment of the steem ecosystem. 

Fortunately, there are other things haejin cares about like his Twitter page he updates regularly, his business which is clearly a scam and also his YouTube channel. My God! The man has the time to upload videos on YouTube but finds it hard to even link them via dtube here. This just goes to show how much he rates steem. 

Now, like I have said before and I am not going to mince my words, all is fair in love and war. If he wants to fight, I will fight back, on and off steem. That includes regular visits to all his social media accounts I know and giving him a piece of my mind. At the end of the day, I have only $200 to lose while he has so much more to lose. Fortunately, he lives in the United State, probably reporting to relevant authorities that can track him down would be a plus for the steem community since he is out here selling financial advice whilst using a disclaimer, which for me is pretty much a scam. So yeah, his days are numbered.

I still haven't reconciled with the steem community. I still don't know what to make of it right now. One of the reasons I'm pushing my 3speak channel because I'm not getting the satisfaction I need here either by creating content or earning. I don't think hopping from one discord group to the other in search of favors is something I have the time to do now. Plus I have to be more intentional with my life. I don't want to speak too much about my plans for next year but I hope I can actualize them. That way I will be more of an asset to the steem community and my family.