For years, I lived a life of self-imposed limits. But the bitcoin community has given me the confidence to share my point of view.
This is an opinion piece by Mickey Koss, a West Point graduate with a degree in economics. He spent four years in the infantry before moving to the Finance Corps.
This one is for the plebs.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I wasn’t asked to write for Bitcoin Magazine. How could the team there even know I existed? I actually found his article submission link by accident while looking for a customer service email address. Then an idea came to me for an article, I sent a quick email and they liked the idea.
So I had to write a draft. When it finally went live, I was hooked. Completely obsessed. I couldn’t get enough of writing and then the second article submission I sent received an unceremonious “no”. When I asked why, I received a scathing review from the editor.
I realized though, just because they thought the article sucked, it didn’t mean I thought so too. The review was for the content, not for me. It was a great learning point that allowed me to adjust my strategy and change my mindset. Heck, this article is an adoption of a draft that was rejected for one of Bitcoin Magazine’s print editions. The publisher who rejected me is now the producer of a fairly large bitcoin-focused YouTube channel. In fact, he just hired me to write behind the scenes for him. How’s that for the full circle?
I didn’t even post my first social media post. It took almost 10 of my articles to be published for me to publicly allude to the fact that I wrote them by posting the articles on LinkedIn. I was afraid. I was afraid of what my friends would think, what people would say, how they would react. I didn’t have the confidence to promote my own content. But the community was welcoming and supportive. They continue to be. With the support of my wife, the bitcoin community is what gave me the courage to continue. If nothing else, the friendships I’ve made along the way have been more than worth it
Write your proof of work CV
Who am I? I am no one. I probably have nothing to do here. But you are reading my article. It might as well have been yours. It can still be yours. Bitcoin has a cap, yes, but the Bitcoin community is not a zero-sum game.
Until I found Bitcoin, I had lived a life of invisible, self-imposed limits. I had resigned myself to the fact that I needed to invest early and often, and that I would have to pursue a low risk, medium and conservative career so that I could retire at 60 and live just long enough to die as my grandchildren began to graduate from college.
But I became restless. Bitcoin has allowed me to see things I was previously blind to. It made me brave. It gave me the courage to take responsibility for my life and forge my own path. Bitcoin unlocked my potential. Storing your life force in a non-dilutive, permissionless, peer-to-peer monetary network is incredibly powerful.
Every person who tells me that Bitcoin is stupid, a Ponzi or a scam makes me that much more optimistic. These are simple reminders that we are still so inscrutably at the beginning of this decentralized revolution. These NPCs rarely spent more than a few minutes or hours researching the opposite mind to confirm their own existing biases. They are in prisons of their own making, giving up a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to build something new.
The truth is that the biggest obstacle in your life may very well be the limits you impose on yourself in your own mind.
Eliminate your doubts with Bitcoin and become unlimited.
This is a guest post by Mickey Koss. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.