Welcome dude. As your cousin said, Hive is "free", but growing your account, expanding your network is not. It takes work, and more importantly patience.

Take the time to learn from your cousin the do's and the don'ts. This place can be great, and it is, but people here tend to be very protecting and there's good reasons for that.

This post of yours, perfect. It's real, its you, its raw, it has value. Lots of people jump on here thinking they have to impress some sort of floating brain in a cloud. That's simply incorrect and silly.

Make sure you post only original stuff, and more importantly, take the time to browse hashtags and make friends, make connections. Build an audience of people who enjoy your life philosophy.

Will this happen in a month, two, three? Up to you. The more work you put into this, the faster it will go, but its still a marathon, not a sprint.

Cheers, and best of luck

MenO