This post name may seem strange but it should soon become clear...

The Lent begins...

Today we have Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent, which is a 40-day period of penance in Christianity, which is supposed to help one prepare for Easter. Well actually it's a little bit more as Sundays are not counted - for a religious reason as Sunday isn't considered a day proper to penance, but rather for celebration - and it starts today with Ash Wednesday and ends at the start of Paschal Triduum - at Holy Thursday. It's all about celebrating the last days of Jesus Christ, his death, and resurrection. How this period duration is counted may differ among denominations, so You can also hear about other ways of doing it. But anyway it's about number 40, as it has many biblical references, with the most important being Jesus fasting for 40 days in the desert.

But as much as those are extremely important things for me (as I said I'm catholic) it's actually not what I'm going to write. It's more about the custom of Lent resolutions. Regardless of You are believers or not such customs could be very helpful, also with something You perhaps struggle for a long time. And what generally makes it easier to follow those resolutions is to share them with others. So I thought... why not share them here and maybe inspire others for some good resolutions? I also come up with some which are connected with crypto, so most likely could be replicated with most people here.

My resolutions

The thing I'm most struggling with is time management. I tend to waste a lot of time and even while not doing it, using it inefficiently. So many of them are connected to those. So here comes my list, with a quick explanation:

• Giving up Facebook (I would write also about other social media, but I did not use any other actually... well perhaps someone would count Publish0x in, but I think that wouldn't be correct) - as actually it tends to consume a lot of my time. Even if it is somewhat useful and good in some way usually most of this time is simply wasted. Well, actually there will be 2 exceptions to that rule. First is communication with other members of local KSM (which stands for "Katolickie Stowarzyszenie Młodzieży" meaning literally "Catholic Youth Association" - I think this name is self-explanatory), as we for example prepare considerations for Way of the Cross (I mean special Christian worship for a period of Lent which we do every Friday), and the second is... checking groups with work offers for IT. 
• No computer games - well this is similar to Facebook one. But the funny thing is - I like playing games (not only on a computer, I love board games too! ...so for the place, I would visit I plan also to exclude BGG forum of Terraforming Mars) but recently I didn't have much time for it. Though it's not like I didn't do it at all in last months or weeks. Or even days. But less often nevertheless. This would be more difficult as I really like Minecraft and now the snapshots for the new updates (and it seems to be one of the best yet!) are published. But well... it's good that it is difficult. I think Lent resolutions should be a challenge, after all, they are not only ways to better prepare spiritually for Easter, but also of self-development - and it definitely needs challenges. It will also include highly restraining mobile games. Which also takes me too much time actually.
  Well as Sundays are somewhat excluded I'll do a special exception on Sunday, but with some requirements. Those requirements would be
  • not breaking other resolutions in the preceding week - especially not being behind with courses/portfolio developing
  • firstly spend at least 2 hours for fandom works, and together 7 hours in the whole week. 
    Actually, I think such a way of "respite" - but conditional one - would help to keep on those resolutions
• Restrain watching YouTube videos - This includes Minecraft YouTubers (like my favorite Tidzimi - the only slight exception would be snapshot's review but also on Sundays with the same conditions), some fandom lore videos, etc. I would (besides just listen to music during work) limit it just to videos for spiritual development (like some retreat teaching) and cryptocurrency analysis. 
• Giving up some bad habits - that's also kinda self-explanatory and what are those I would prefer to keep private actually. With those four resolutions, I hope to have more time for other important things, which are...
• Spending at least 2-hours a day on developing my programmer portfolio or doing IT-courses - currently, I do some to improve my skills in PHP(which I hope help me to find a first job which I'm trying for over 3 months), later I'm going to try out this one to learn about blockchain and de-fi programming. I will also share my experience with that course here!
• Writing one post a week here. I actually wanted to do it some time ago, but well... being so unorganized I didn't actually manage to do it yet. And there a few things I would want to write. Maybe I should also start to write about more fandom things, including how that could relate to crypto and blockchain? That's certainly an option, but not the only one, of course, other being ways of making some income online or even somewhat philosophical thoughts about crypto (write in the comments which topics You want mostly!)
• And there are fandom ones. In some sense least important but for me they still are actually important. And in that regard, I'm kinda left behind and have some catch-ups to do. This time I split this resolution into sublist, from the most to least important (as I'm afraid I could not succeed for all of those points)
  • Finally finishing at least one chapter of my first and most important fandom works: "Kod Lyoko Powrót Xany" (Code Lyoko Return of Xana - I will give the translation of titles in brackets, but as currently those fanfiction are not translated the English titles may be changed) - which really long awaits for being finished (and currently I'm just on book II from IV, and on about half of it's 13. chapter - from 26 planned). Also publishing this 13. chapter is supposed to be the start of KLPX action getting back to life... and what better time for that would be than a holiday about the resurrection? (If You didn't get it I mean Easter)
  • Get back to NMS (shortcut for "Nasza Mała Sunset" - Our Little Sunset), as it has some funs eagerly awaiting new chapter... and end of last was definitely a cliffhanger! 
  • Finish betterment of "Kod Equestria" (Code Equestria), especially that it's featured in some spin-off competition in our Polish fandom.
  • Finally complement a Lyoko Oneshot series from December...
  • Also connected to said spin-off competition... finish addition fo Lyokoverse guide (Code Equestria's universe is called Lyokoverse) about races (ant there's really a lot of them!) depicted in it.
  • Finish some other started stories and work on another multiverse story... and perhaps some work for writing competition in MLP-fandom
  • And also just read more.
• There is also one more but for this one, I decided to make a whole paragraph instead...

Crypto for charity

You know, part of the very idea of Lent is almsgiving, and this period is somewhat about number 40... So I come up with special resolutions, connected to crypto. I decided to give 40% of my profits from that period to charities of some sort. I didn't decide yet what they will be exactly (though I have something in mind, including some gathering for help precise person in need - I mean like those needing some expensive medical treatment, etc.), it will depend on how much I will have. 

For that, I'll use my profits just from coinbase (as it is the main crypto-exchange I use - If You didn't have an account there yet You could use my referral link - if I get a bonus from that in a period of Lent I will also calculate that in "my profits"!), and I will calculate it in the following way.

• The base would be the state of my account now - which is 1330 euro - and all money I would add to that (And if I get my first job soon enough I will certainly invest about 10% of my first payoff!)
• For calculating the profit I would subtract the base from the state of my account on Holy Thursday

I don't know if I would realize the profits right at that point, but this point would be for calculating this 40%. So for example if my account state at Holy Thursday would be 1440 euro then that would mean my profit was actually 110 euro. So 40% of it would be 44 euros, and this would go for charities. 

At the end of this Lent (or maybe after Easter) perhaps I also do a post about how much profit I did make and what charities I choose. 

Final Words

Regardless of You are catholic (or just of another Christian denomination) or not I hope this was somewhat inspiring for You... or maybe even You already do some own Lent resolutions ;) 

My referral links

HoneyGain
https://r.honeygain.me/MACIEC06C9 

Freebitcoin:
https://freebitco.in/?r=21393011 

Cointiply:
http://cointiply.com/r/RDepd 

Coinpot - moon faucets:
http://moonbit.co.in/?ref=933F5AFD15F8 
http://moonbitcoin.cash/?ref=955552608E91 
http://moonliteco.in/?ref=48CF0C617C59
http://moondash.co.in/?ref=6FA014FB7AAC
http://moondoge.co.in/?ref=BF4DC028F881 
http://bitfun.co/?ref=04D547 786F61 

Timebucks:
https://timebucks.com/?refID=216078102 

Exchanges: 
https://coinbase.com/join/tomasz_t1 trade at least 100$ to get 10$ bonus in bitcoin!

https://market.tokeneo.com/en/ref/1966r0740b 

https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=UVN9AF39 - with 5% Commission Kickback Rate for You!

https://www.bitpanda.com/?ref=611043704198149865 - get 5 Euro bonus for depositing at least  25 euro and trade at least 25 euro with that link! And then gain 5 euro for completing a test about crypto (unlimited attempts!)

https://www.kucoin.com/ucenter/signup?rcode=rJJKGMW 

...and Publish0x itself: https://www.publish0x.com?a=X7axOPneyv - honestly if You don't have account here yet it's high time to register! And just facebook or twitter account is all You need for that!