<center>![enter image description here](http://i.imgur.com/074fqVf.png)</center>

I am closing in on one year here on steemit and I am growing to love it more and more each day. I am beginning to lear more about the crypto-currency scene and finding it intriguing. In believe it has a strong future.

I create my own articles and having people enjoy them and make a little money is just a win win situation.

So just the other day as I was going through my feed and upvoting some well written articles, I got a message that read:

**"Hey bud, did you know if you keep upvoting low reputations you will never increase your rep?"**

Hmmm, interesting. Am I hurting myself by trying to help.

I feel if I read something of value I will vote on it, no matter of the reputation of the person.  That message has made me wonder though.

The way I feel is if someone takes the time to create something that I enjoyed reading and I upvote, wouldn't that help the community.

This what I think, it may be wrong:

<center>![enter image description here](http://i.imgur.com/6rdlOZw.jpg)</center>

1- If I help a person increase there rep by upvoting, that makes the community stronger.

2 - If I support others, hopefully they support me.

3 - If someone eventually gets a higher rep than me that I supported, that will end up helping my rep.

So the message made me think about it and what I did was learn more about how the voting power works. I feel like I have a better understanding of distributing my voting amount. 

Will I stop upvoting lower reputation posts? No way, not if I find value in it!

This is a great community and I never thought I would meet so many awesome people from across the world!

I hope this community can keep growing and we all find success in our own way!

What do you think? Am I hurting myself or should I keep on doing what I have been?

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