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With less than two and a half weeks left of this decade lots of thoughts are swirling through my mind. The end of the year is always a time of reflection for me. 

I’ll spend these last few days of 2019 plotting my course for the coming year...planning our travels, deciding which projects to devote my time to, and thinking about the state of things in general. 

One thing is for sure, we live in a time of great change. However, it’s not a change of the sort you always hear about in the corporate owned mainstream media. 

As it has for the past three years, Steemit has been a catalyst for attracting so many good things into my life. This year we spent time with @opheliafu and @cryptogee in London this past May. We also had a chance to hang out with @roelandp and family in Amsterdam for a little while before they left for SteemFest. 

The world of cryptocurrency has been such a crazy roller coaster ride these past few years but I’ll never regret jumping aboard. In my opinion, as anxiety inducing as it is in the short term, cryptocurrency is a smart hedge against the very real possibility of even more volatility to come in the traditional financial markets. 

I’m currently reading a book from Jessica Bruder entitled, “[Nomadland - Surviving America In The Twenty-First Century](https://www.jessicabruder.com/nomadland-ii).” The book paints a disturbing picture of the after effects of a middle class that has been systematically dismantled over these past few decades.
 
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Nomadland chronicles the life of a growing number of Americans, mainly senior citizens and recent college grads, who for financial reasons are being forced from their homes to live lives on the road in RVs. 

Many of these people in their sixties and seventies make ends meet by working temporary (and physically demanding) jobs that range from Amazon distribution centers to harvesting sugar beet crops in the Midwest. 
 
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## “The last free thing in America is a parking spot.” - Jessica Bruder in Nomadland ## 
 
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Amazon has gone as far as to create a program to help attract this group of silver haired nomads and take advantage of their cheap labor and flexibility. Amazon’s program [Camperforce](http://www.amazondelivers.jobs/about/camperforce/) is designed to ping pong them between whichever of their distribution centers (located in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arizona) need the most seasonal help. 

There is a small bright spot in all of this. The book also highlights how these people have organized on social media and help each other out in times of need. They regularly schedule caravans to Mexico when they need affordable dental work and/or medical procedures. As sad as the situation is, the ingenuity and drive of these people to make the most of their reality gives me solace. 

I highly recommend the book. It provides only a small glimpse of what the next decades will be like for even more of us so it’s best to prepare for it now. The book also serves as a potent reminder that we must not let others lull us into a false sense of security. We must wake up to the fact that no one is looking out for us, but us. We must take charge of our own lives and our own futures. Steemit, and the world of cryptocurrency in general, are great examples of this. 
 
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## “There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.” ― Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle ##
 
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There’s no doubt in my mind that this world is shifting in a major way. There will be casualties during the transition and it’s up to us to insure we’re not among them. 

There are some aspects of the old world that may bring us comfort but that we’ll have to shed in order to reach a place that’s better. By the same token, there are aspects of the new world that will bring us lots of anxiety but we’ll have to learn to embrace. 

The future will be transformed and decentralized more quickly and in ways that we can’t even imagine now. This new reality will require much more active participation from us. No matter what ups and downs this new decade brings I will always be grateful for the tribe I’ve found here on this platform and everything you’ve taught me. Here’s to a fruitful 2020 for us all!  

We'll have to relearn something some of us forgot a long time ago...we're all just nomads after all. 

Thank you for another amazing year, Steemit! 
 
 
With Gratitude,
~Eric Vance Walton~




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