There's a lot to learn on Hive, and it never ends so don't try to run too soon and too fast.

The reward pool is finite and is there to support users who create content. If you upvote, why not upvote to support some else instead of yourself? Imagine if the whales are greedy and constantly upvoted themselves leaving nothing for everyone else. Next time you hit the upvote button in your own post, consider upvoting someone else instead.

Hopefully you will learn from this episode and move on