Steemit Ultimate Challenge 8 Weeks - Week #7 - How Steemit changed my life

I made an account on 1/17/2017 , I was still 17 at a time and I didn't understand the power of Steemit or what could it become. At that time I made a total of 3 posts and quit with Steemit as I had a lot of things going on in my life, including drugs, scum and all sort of useless things that distract us from our path of life. You can read about my life in this post; Should I Reveal Myself on the Internet? - My Life - Art of Knowing Yourself Challenge - Created by @tamacvet
I have written in there what my life has been so far, with all the ups and downs, and how I became who I am today.

In this post I will write how Steemit changed my life for Steemit Ultimate Challenge 8 Weeks ( Prize Fund 2000 SBD ) Week #7 made by @dobartim, big thank you to him, he also created an initiative "Steem Schools" - his goal is to educate people in life success and change their lives for the better. Be sure to check it out on discord and meet wonderful people.

_{Made with https://pixlr.com/editor/ source}

Beginnings

11/26/2017 was my first proper post, as well as my introduction to all of you wonderful Steemians, if you want to check it out - Introducing myself!

I was a shitposter, started with my drawings with the minimum text I could offer and without progress pictures as I didn't know what quality post is. I didn't know about discord communities back then and people who help and educate new Steemians so I was learning on my own about Steemit 24/7 as I was unemployed and this was my ticket.

I've entered contests and posting memes, writing fictional stories but no one was there to read it but my best supporters @dumar022 and @tmntzara, for which I am forever grateful because they kept me here, and now I can say I am no longer a shitposter.

Financial changes

1st

1 month into Steemit, Christmas was coming in and our financial status was close to none so we thought there will be no gifts under the Christmas tree if we would even have a tree to put them under it. But then a struck of luck went my way and I have written a story for @v4vapid contest - psy-op conspiracy. I didn't win the contest but it didn't even matter as himself and @blocktrades have upvoted it and paid off for my Christmas.

This post was my first financial life-changing experience from Steemit as we had the best Christmas so far in our lives, my brother-in-law and I have bought the tree, the Christmas dinner in halves and the gifts were where the rest of the money went.
These are the pictures:

Sadly I don't have pictures from when the gifts were under the tree or the Christmas dinner, as we enjoyed it in real life, without capturing the moment, but living it. :)

2nd

My transition from shitposter to a somewhat quality writer happened when I saw how thourough @ilyastarar guide for newbies was, he then made a translation initiative in which I took part, if you want to check out the post - Česta pitanja apsolutnih početnika Steemit-a : Dočekivanje i upoznavanje novih korisnika - Steemit Vodič za Novajlije and from that point on I understood what it means effort in a post.

This was my stepping stone for the very next post - Communities - a must for everyone! which I absolutely put my heart and soul in, and writing it, formatting it for 2 days, while simultaneously having interviews with people and asking for permissions to use their pictures and honoring them in the post, as it truly was an honour to write about all of those communities. While my friends told me what are you doing, go outside with us, why are you writing so much. They all kept quiet when I showed them this picture.

That payout covered my rent for that month, as my single mother couldn't bare with expenses that month (I also have 2 sisters). I was really happy to help and actually do something meaningful, because if you have read about my life, I was focused too much on things that didn't matter, like friends, parties, drugs and "living wild and young" (paid for all of that meaningless parties and drugs by myself though) while my family was in such a bad shape that I didn't even recognise, but that's a topic in itself so moving on.

Life communications

I am grateful for this platform as I have met 8 people in real life from Steemit, they are all such positive and supportive people that as I have always said, I can't believe they exist, and not because I lost hope in humanity or anything like that but because I couldn't believe I met those people on social media, and that they give back so much even as we only saw each other 1 time.

Here's our meetup picture.

If you want to check out the meetup post - Steemit meeting in ZAGREB, Croatia

If you count us on the picture there is 7 of us (@olegw, @rita0404, @matejka13, @zen-art, @arrrados, @tonac + me)

The 8th person that I met is @dumar022 - This guy, I thought I am positivity and good vibes sharer, but this guy... He is a true example what a human being should be, he has such a strong spirit and such a strong, positive mind that even his autoimmune disease didn't stop him from having a family and a wonderful life, you can read about him opening up in - The struggle of my life

I am looking forward to meeting a lot more people from here, who knows maybe I even meet You! We are also arranging our own Steemit Fest Balkan but that will be announced when all the details have been concluded.

Education

The only subject I was good in, in school was English, I had A's even though I never learned from textbooks for any subject, I am a person which learns from life lessons, as I have found that it makes me the person I strive to be.
When I came to Steemit I didn't think my English is bad until I saw somewhere about Grammarly - it's a browser extension that checks for errors in your grammar.
This extension underlines mistakes with red and gives you a couple of examples what you should write. I was so mistaken about the level of my English until I saw my whole paragraph in red haha. But as I have used it for months now, whenever I write it underlines maybe 1 word from 300 words, and I am grateful that my English improved by a mile because if it wasn't for Steemit, I would still be mistaken that I have good English.

Ever since I came here I also found and learned a lot about cryptocurrencies, market, investing possibilities and why steem is such an undervalued crypto.
Communication with people also gave me new terms and views to look into, as I didn't know what meant fiat, what gave value to a currency, how to draw better, making better music...

Conclusion

I am only 4 months on Steemit, I still have a long way to go and a lot of writing to do, a lot more educating to do and a lot more people to meet. I am very grateful that I came here and I am very happy to continue my adventure with all of you.
All in all, Steemit really made a drastic turn in my life for the better as I have a lot more time on my hands to do what I want to do and not get my spine broken in construction work for 400 dollar paycheck (monthly).

If you're interested in more of my articles;

Aftermath - Hip Hop/Rap :) Enjoy! 💚

Focus - How to stay positive [Pt.#2]

Perspective - How to stay positive

Should I Reveal Myself on the Internet? - My Life - Art of Knowing Yourself Challenge - Created by @tamacvet