How Bitcoin/Blockchain/Cryptos is changing my life (or at least help indirectly)
First things first
You can interpret these changes from 3 different ways: only because the crypto world I could do such things, somewhat helped, or didn't help at all and I would make these changes someday with nothing related with cryptos because this is how life goes.
I personally prefer to think that is somewhere close to the second, the blockchain technology was the kickstart for a lot of things some I never would go after for myself and others I could do one day for other reasons. But yes, blockchain and everything around teach me something.
Source
The first time I heard about bitcoin and blockchain was back there in 2012 and I thought "eh cool thing lets see...".
...10 minutes after...
"Oh its a dark web coin, used for drugs and weapons, couldn't buy so don't care" - I was very immature back then right? But I changed that.
I set bitcoin aside until December 2016 when people were talking about so I tried again dive into it and things start to change. So let's see where all these new variables make me think different.
Save money and think about the future
Up to 2 years ago I was settled with my life, a OK job in my study field, earning a good money, living my quiet life with a little comfort, and buying every tech junk I saw and comic books. Looking at other people at my age in my country I was doing good.
When I started to read about bitcoin and blockchain I was fascinated by the project and the possibilities so after study a lot about I've decided to put some money in to see what happen. I started to use it and like it so I started a Dollar Cost Averaging in bitcoin but to do that I needed to stop wasting money with random crap. When I started bitcoin was around $1.500 and when I see a few months later I was putting all my money (everything that I before waste, not all money).
Before bitcoin I saved a small amount of money in regular investments just in case of a emergency or to realize a big dream. And I was not too worried about my future, in the future I would retire and live well with the government retirement fund (I was wrong, more on that later). After I started to look more about the concepts of money and the impacts of that in my future, so I saved even more in bitcoin as a long term thing.
About the government retirement fund, well our (Brazil) economy isn't so good. I can't count on that, and why wait for the government do something for me and not I do it for myself? This lead me to my next topic.
Source
Politics and economics
I thought "This bitcoin thing is going good but wait politics are talking about regulation, what the hell this means?", so I started to learn about general politics. Before bitcoin I don't even care about politics, government and all, complete alienation. I know that is bad but I thought that study that won't help at all since almost every politician here is corrupt. With little study about this subject I see that the government retirement fund is in bad shape, and economy too. So I needed to keep an eye on that.
I'm not entering to deep in this topic because I'm still a newbie but I am reading about, mainly economics. I changed a bit my reading list from fantasy novels and comic books to Mises, Rothbard, Friedman, Hayek.
Study in another country
This was a unreachable dream. To study in another country require a lot of money, mostly because BRL isn't so strong so the conversion to other currency is heavy. Only rich people can do such things. For example, a 6 month of general English in Australia, Canada or Ireland cost at least the same as 60 Brazilian monthly minimum wage. This means that I have to save all my money for about 6 or 7 years (not 5 because I have bills to pay). That's hard but I was saving money in bitcoin now and who would imagine that it will hit $20.000 in the same year? I was about to achieve my biggest dream. So I cached out and bought the program. In a couple of months I'm going to Australia YAY :D
Source
Alts and investment
So right now I'm huge fan of cryptos. Last year I started to look over other cryptos (I like Dash, NEO and Steem) and study about investments, trading, conventional investment, stocks, and so on. I discovered a whole new world, I can do more with my money that I ever imagine. This help me most evolve as a person, evaluate what I'm doing and use reason.
Source
Programming
In all this time I receive a lot from the community, whether in videos, articles, advices, apps and services, good friends, good chats. It's time to give back to the community.
This is the main reason that made me learn programming (not even close yet, not even close to be considered a developer of anything). I would love to build in the near future apps, dapps, services and contribute with projects that can make the world better in some way. So much have to be done and everyone counts.
Writing
And finally cryptos made me write again!
Writing is a good hobby, is good to learn something (someone says that you only learn something when you teach someone), is good contribute and share ideas and knowledge, and is good for mental health.
Steemit bring me back the desire to write and share things. I had a blog in Portuguese but was very unmotivated for many reasons, now it is back. This is my first article here (not counting my introduction) and I'm loving interact with you guys.
Thank You
Man that's a huge text, sorry for that. :D
If you read thanks. If you like, comment here what you think, for me this is a massive change but you can judge as something ordinary.