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If you missed the first two chapters click here.

I sat there in stunned silence pondering this question that the Shepherd had posed. How could I know who died happier? I knew that she was waiting for a certain answer to see if I was jiving with her ways or not. I most assuredly felt I was not.

“I guess the woman who had a harder time felt more content at the end of her days,” I offered.

The Shepherd squeezed my hands, which she was still grasping. Oddly, I found this public display of affection a little awkward and embarrassing, but I didn’t know how to broach that topic with her without seeming like a complete and total jerk.

“You said what you thought I wanted you to say,” said the Shepherd. “That’s interesting. But the truth is that your gut instinct was probably right. Your first thought was probably, ‘How the hell should I know?’ Wasn’t that it?”

I just sat there. I had no idea what my face was doing, which was probably a bad thing.

The Shepherd laughed again. Guffawed, more accurately. “Go on, just say it. That was your thought. You were wondering how in the hell this old biddy expected you to know who died happier, right?”

I cracked a smile. “Yeah, ok. That’s kind of what crossed my mind.”

“THAT is the exact 100% correct response when anyone asks you a question about who is happier or more fulfilled or more contented. How in the heck do we know? Maybe the woman who had a harder time finally got the child she had always wanted but the kid was a total twirp. Maybe her husband cheated on her at the end so she had a kid but no man. Maybe the woman for whom everything seemed to come easy was plagued by mental illness and self doubt. Who knows? We can’t know unless we are in that person’s head, which is of course impossible. For now.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I felt a little sheepish I must admit. I had been busted for trying to answer just to please the Shepherd. But I liked this no BS response.

“Now,” she said, “You’re probably wondering what this has to do with my life.”

To be honest, I had forgotten that I had asked that first embarrassing question. I nodded with some uncertainty.

“The thing is, people have all kinds of ideas about why I do what I do,” said the Shepherd. “Some people have made up stories about how my father was abusive and I have been widowed 17 times so I threw my hands open and just decided to be a hobo. Other people think I must have been born like Buddha, rich and pampered, and then one day I realized I was spoiled and decided to pay everything back. None of this is 100% true, but aspects of all of it are true. I guess my point is I don’t understand why it matters. I am doing what I am doing. If it benefits some people, who cares why I am doing it?”

“I think people just want to feel more connected to you,” I offered. “You are this warm persona, this helpful being, and yet most people don’t even know your real name at this point. They want to be able to be thankful to a person and not a symbol.”

“Hm,” the Shepherd was pondering what I had said, much to my amazement. I admit, I felt a little proud of myself. Oh hubris. “I guess that could be so. Is that why you want to know about my past?”

For reasons I couldn’t pinpoint this question startled me a little. Why? I had no idea. But I pulled myself together quickly. “I want to know so I can tell your story to other people who want to know. That’s my mission as a documentarian. To document what people want to know, maybe even before they realize they want to know it.”

“Well, we will get to it. Right now though we need to go to the Children’s Hospital. There are going to be some celebrities there visiting the oncology ward. I don’t want you to film anything but I want you to watch what I do. It might give you some of this insight you are looking for.”

We put our dishes back onto our tray and put the tray on the counter. The Shepherd had a little minivan and a driver that was waiting for her. I thought that was weird. First a giant “tree house,” now a private chaperone. These things seemed to clash with her persona as a sort of Mother Theresa. I made a note to myself to keep an eye on this dichotomy.

“Follow us,” the Shepherd said. “Tony will give you directions just in case we get separated.

I got the directions from Tony the driver. He was a giant of a man with a black goatee and a black ponytail. Rather intimidating, really, at least from where I was standing by the driver-side door. His directions seemed clear enough though.

“I drive fast,” he warned.

“Duly noted,” I called over my shoulder.

After about a 15-minute drive we arrived at the hospital. I parked fairly near where Tony did so I could follow him out easily. The Shepherd confidently made her way to the oncology ward. Everyone we encountered, from the nurses to the doctors to the surgeons, all recognized her. Some nodded and smiled, some took her hands and squeezed them, and others gave her hugs. They all seemed to know why she was here. I did not. If celebrities were going to be in the ward, why did she also need to be there? It seemed to me almost like she wanted some of the attention for herself.

After making sure I didn’t have any video recording equipment running, the Shepherd had me follow her to the first room, which had three beds divided by curtains for privacy. Two adults, a man and a woman, were standing outside the first curtain, which was closed. At first I thought the child was having a procedure done, but quickly that notion fell off as I heard a child excitedly talking. It became clear that one of the celebrities, a local athlete I think, was talking to the kid inside. The Shepherd didn’t go inside the curtain though. She beelined right for the two adults, who I now presumed were that child’s parents. I stood at a respectful distance inside the doorway, watching, as the Shepherd had directed me to.

The parents, when we first peeked into the room, had been wearing strange expressions on their face that I couldn’t really read. It was not a look of happiness or excitement, but it wasn’t a look of sadness either. A nurse passed by and I asked about the three children in this room. The child in the first bed, who was getting his own celebrity one-on-one, had a brain tumor. He wasn’t expected to live out the month. “He’s such a sweetheart,” the nurse said. Her eyes instantly filled with tears. I wondered how people like her managed to handle their jobs day in and day out.

The Shepherd had been talking to the parents while I was getting debriefed by the nurse. Suddenly I saw her take the mother’s left hand in hers. She said something I could not hear, and all of a sudden the mother, the father, and the Shepherd rushed past me out the door into the waiting area down the hall. The mother barely made it out of the room before she started sobbing deep, wracking sobs. The Shepherd guided her, with the father’s help, to a chair, and then the Shepherd, standing in front of the woman, pulled her close. The woman grabbed the Shepherd’s shirt as if she was clinging for dear life, or perhaps as if she would fall through the floor if she didn’t hang on tight enough. The father was rubbing his wife’s back, but giant tears were falling out of his eyes as well. The sobbing went on for a painful long time, what seemed to me like hours. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Just watching a scene like this made me feel like a voyeur. As a documentarian I should have been used to this feeling, but watching without a camera in my hands, I felt naked and awkward.

“Go to the bathroom, wash your face, and take some deep big breaths, honey,” the Shepherd said as she brushed a few last tears from the aggrieved woman’s face. “It’ll be alright, honey. I promise.” She gave the man a giant hug and it looked almost as if he was about to sink into sobs himself, but at the last minute he thought against it. The Shepherd wiped the tears from his eyes as well. “It’ll be ok, sweetheart. Hang in there.”

Holding hands, the couple walked away from the Shepherd and towards the bathrooms around the corner. As soon as they were out of earshot, I asked her what had happened.

“Whenever celebrities come to visit people who are sick in the hospital, I try to come visit the caregivers – the parents, the family members who have been tirelessly standing watch. It’s a mixed bag for them, these events. They see their loved one happier and more excited than they have been for quite some time, but they can’t help but wonder if this is sort of the last hurrah. Will their loved one ever get the chance to be this happy again? Will they ever get to be this engaged and excited? No one ever cares for the caregivers in hospitals. Not really. They pour all of their time and energy into wishing their loved ones would get well. It’s especially hard for parents of little kids I think, because they feel pressured not to show any fear or sadness. They don’t want to upset their kids or make their kids feel scared.”

“What did you say to them?” I asked. I have to admit, my eyes were welling up. I had never thought about any of this before. It had never occurred to me.

“I told the mother that she should enjoy this moment. Savor it. Do not think about everything the child has been through or what might be coming down the way. Just really enjoy this moment, when your son is babbling away and talking about his favorite moments in sports history.”

“And that made her break down?” I asked.

“No. That question didn’t make her break down, honey,” the Shepherd said sadly and softly. The fact that someone cared, took her hand, and let her cry made her break down.

Just as the Shepherd finished talking the father showed up in the waiting room again. His lip was trembling, and it was clear he was trying with all of his might not to collapse into his own stress and grief. He looked around the corner, and assured that his wife was calm and back at their son’s side, he sat down on the ground in front of the Shepherd and put his head in her lap. He did not say anything, nor did she. She simply stroked his hair as a mother would. Mostly he cried in silence, but sometimes a groan or an exhalation would reveal the pain he was in. The Shepherd just kept stroking his hair for what seemed like a very long time.

Finally she lifted up his head with her hands. Looking into his eyes she said, “You know honey, you are being so strong for your wife and your son, but you have to make sure you take care of yourself too. Don’t hold all of this in, honey, ok?”

The man just nodded. She gave him a big hug, patted him on the back, and said, “Now you go enjoy your son’s enjoyment of this moment. This is a precious time to hold on to, no matter what happens.

The man gave her one more squeeze and headed back towards his child’s room. I looked at the Shepherd and she seemed exhausted. Tear stains marked her shirt. Tear stains marked her own face. It occurred to me that even though she had been doing this for years, these people who let all of their grief go with her, it hurt her as much as it hurt me. That’s why I was taken aback when she said, “Well, let’s see who needs us next.”

That whole afternoon that scene repeated itself. The details were different but the results were almost always the same. While the parents’ children were being entertained by famous athletes, the parents were getting their moment to give voice to all of their anger and fear and sadness. The Shepherd took care of them. Each of them. And her message was always the same. “This right now is a good moment. Hold on to this. This is all that matters right in this instant. Your child is happy and excited and flushed with being starstruck. This is special.”

When I got back to my hotel room that night, I stepped into the shower and cried harder than I have cried in quite some time. I found myself wondering if the Shepherd did the same thing.

Over the last few months I’ve been watching an effort increasingly gain momentum in the online world. When I first heard about it I shared it myself because I thought it was really really cool, but then I found out that the person who started promoting it initially was doing so because this group was actually their client. That wasn’t the puzzling part, however. The puzzling part was that this person somehow managed to get lots of other people I was connected to to promote the cause too. There have been Twitter chats, blog posts, Facebook shares, and who knows what else. I have been scratching my head trying to figure out if these other folks even know that they are helping this person do client work.

Suddenly, lying around in my sickly stupor today, I figured it out. Of course they are aware that this is all for this person’s client. People in the online world tap their connections on the shoulder and say, “Hey, my client is doing this thing and I really want them to make a big splash. Can you help me?”

Would you believe that doing that has never occurred to me over the years I’ve been online? I feel yucky when I decide to let someone know I’m writing a post that they’re tagged in, so I try to do it in advance of the post being published or well after so they know I’m just letting them know and am not requesting that they share it. But this is really what people do in the PR and marketing world today, apparently. They say, “I’m going to be running a Twitter chat for this client – can you come and make it look like it’s popular?”

Transparency is a word that gets tossed around a lot in the online world, so I have to say that it is disturbing to me that this whole realization I just had is anti-transparency in two ways. For people who, like me, think that all of these people are jumping onto a cause just because it’s super cool, it is frustrating to realize that you have in a way been duped. These folks may not feel particularly passionate about the product or the project. They are scratching someone’s back – without revealing it to be so. But I wonder too if this is not also showing a lack of transparency to the client. If you are looking to make a report on how many times your chat’s hashtag was used in an hour, sure, getting lots of people to join in makes sense. Are those people ever going to buy your client’s product? Eh.

It is sort of sad it took me this long to come to this realization, which may seem completely obvious to you. I have always tried to do favors to people while I’ve been online because I thought I was helping out, being nice, even building friendships. But I realize now that in many cases the expectation was that I was doing that favor because then I would say to that person, “OK, now can you share this post I wrote for our agency blog?” I never do that, really. I have always figured if people want to read my content they will. If they want to share it they will. So, people took their favors, waited for the other shoe to drop, and when it didn’t, well – they were able to go on their merry way. I was not playing the game correctly.

Do I regret doing things the way I did? Not at all. At all times I have done my best to remain true to what I feel is right. I have never felt that begging for readers and shares was appropriate, so I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t feel right telling a client that their amount of Twitter followers increased because I messaged 50 of my friends and asked them to give my client a “like” or a follow. I don’t regret doing any of the favors I did. Every book review I have ever written I did from the heart with the hope that it would help the person in question. When I participated in this or that to support a friend, I did it as just that – a friend. I can’t have any regrets about that.

Having said that, it is bitterly frustrating to watch other people present the illusion of success, both for themselves and for their clients, when it so often is just a house of cards, a masterful disguise of what is really going on in the online world. Perhaps companies are experiencing such difficulty in measuring their Social Media ROI not because it’s difficult but rather because the numbers would reveal the truth – all of those impressions, likes, hashtag uses, and retweets are the function of behind-the-scenes back scratching and nothing more. Where does that leave these companies? Good question.

I don’t regret doing social media wrong. Not one bit. I would easily be able to defend myself before any clients, and I can look in the mirror every night and every morning and know that even if I am not on the surface the most successful person around, at least I have maintained honesty, integrity, and yes, even that famous buzz word – transparency. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. And to people like Kaarina Dillabough, Marsha Collier, and Brian Vickery, who support me without my ever even hinting at an ask – thank you. My appreciation knows no bounds.

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hkvam/148970581/ via Creative Commons

Today I read a book by Molly Cantrell-Kraig called “I want to die: 100 reasons you shouldn’t.” (not an affiliate link). Molly’s idea is that sometimes a person who is in despair just needs to be reminded that life is worth living, and she gives 100 reasons why life is worth holding on to. Molly’ will be giving portions of her proceeds to suicide prevention programs.

Molly’s post got me to thinking. What are 100 reasons I want to live? I think it’s a good exercise, so here is what I came up with, in no particular order.

1. The ocean – the sound, the mystery, the different waves, the different shades of blue and grey

2. Sunlight that is warm on your back but not too hot

3. Reading. I still have not come remotely close to reading every book about Abraham Lincoln, not to mention every other historical figure I adore!

4. Fresh out of the oven cookies

5. The joy of plotting surprises for people

6. Eddie Izzard (he is so smart and so funny – how could I miss out on him?)

7. The lure of travel. I haven’t even been to Europe yet, and the places I have been have been spectacular.

8. Fresh fruit and vegetables (I have become addicted this year)

9. Gardening – waiting for little seeds to turn into big beautiful flowers or whatever they might be

10. My family – my parents, my brother, my cousins, my aunts and uncles – I am so very lucky

11. Dancing. I might look terrible doing it but boy is it fun.

12. Yoga

13. Tai Chi (and I still haven’t learned the 32 steps of the form I’m working on. Got to finish that!)

14. Knitting – I have so much to do and I need to get so much better!

15. My grandpa’s recipe for iced tea – the taste of summer

16. The first blooming forsythia in spring

17. The first snowfall (that loses its charm rather quickly)

18. Thanksgiving

19. Curling up in bed while it storms outside

20. Raking leaves. I know. I’m terribly weird.

21. That first moment you realize, “Hey, it’s still light outside. Neat!”

22. The sound of laughter

23. Monty Python – who could ever want to leave a world in which Monty Python exists?

24. Coffee – oh, coffee..I could never quit you

25. Massages

26. Those cool breeze days where walking outside feels like you are walking through silky sheets

27. Seeing relatives after a long time apart (especially at holidays. I’m a mush)

28. Meeting an online friend in real life for the first time (so far I’ve had good luck!)

29. Sushi

30. A hot shower on a cold day

31. The smell of flowers, each different, each unique

32. Noticing little things, like the veins on a leaf

33. Learning new things (that never runs out, btw)

34. Museums

35. Kitties

36. Fighting with Jason Konopinski and Ken Jacobs about how to eat a bagel with lox

37. Depressing myself by watching my Cleveland sports teams (it’s still fun in a weird way)

38. Flying on a plane (it still amazes me)

39. Mozart. Even Mozart’s Requiem makes me want to live

40. Van Gogh’s art. Some day I will go to Amsterdam and see his museum 🙂

41. Newborn snuggly babies

42. Soft furry animals of any kind pretty much – how can you be sad when you’re holding a puppy?

43. Coming up with a new business idea every day with Erin Feldman (and feeling determined we will make at least half of them happen)

44. Learning to cook a new recipe (even though it’s terrifying)

45. Finding the perfect pair of shoes

46. Hearing that you cheered someone up or made a positive difference for them

47. Writing

48. Live music events, especially if you like the music

49. Deciding to sleep a little longer on a Saturday

50. Inside jokes

51. Witty exchanges of sarcastic blather (I excel at that I think)

52. Seeing someone you care about succeed (in whatever way may come to them)

53. Trying something new

54. Conquering a fear or a problem

55. A phonecall with a friend

56. Birthdays

57. My peeps – Michelle, Paget, Karima, Erin, Olivier, Geoff – the family I’ve adopted 🙂

58. Getting something in the mail that’s not a bill or a sales promo

59. Wonderful television shows like Downton Abbey and Breaking Bad (sniff)

60. Discovering people online whom you went to school with 30 years ago (this really happens)

61. Being on the receiving end of random acts of kindness, like the lovely note I got from Ms. Mila Araujo just today

62. Playful banter that tends to occur on my Facebook wall (sometimes it even gets too weird for me)

63. Trading cloche hats digitally with Ms. Kaarina Dillabough

64. The sound of tree frogs in the fall, which I can hear singing right now

65. Summer thunderstorms

66. Tea, hot

67. Family traditions

68. New haircuts

69. Getting to network with incredibly amazing and inspirational people like the aforementioned Molly, Angela Daffron, Mark Horvath, Sam Parrotto, and many others

70. Getting to tweet an author and say, “Hey, I liked your book. Thanks for writing it.” That will never get old.

71. PJs

72. My favorite parks

73. Hiking your troubles away

74. Yarn festivals, complete with alpacas and angora rabbits

75. Hot dogs. There is just something about them.

76. Feeling motivated by others – I get a kick out of people who kick my butt

77. I still plan on running a marathon for my 40th birthday – gotta be alive to do that unless I want to be a zombie on a zombie run (which I don’t)

78. Charity work – It makes everything seem better

79. Getting recognition for something you thought no one noticed

80. Happy secrets

81. Candles – especially ones that aren’t too cologne-like

82. Boston. Let’s just say it. Boston.

83. Girls’ nights out

84. Going to movies (even on your own)

85. That feeling when the laundry is done (though I hate doing laundry)

86. Comfort movies (one of mine is Secret of Nimh, I’m not ashamed to admit)

87. Celebrity crushes. I have a few.

88. Documentaries that change your perspective

89. Hawaii. Um, yeah.

90. The redwood forests of California. This will change your perspective on everything.

91. Children – they are pure human concentrate and often too wonderful to describe

92. Waiting for your favorite moment in that movie you’ve seen 10 million times

93. Canoeing (I need to do more of this)

94. Getting a hug right when you most need it

95. Pleasant surprises (they always keep you guessing. You can’t give up because you never know what’s around the corner)

96. Watching Karima lust after shoes (really – it’s admirable!)

97. Watching people in real life perform Tai Chi and other martial arts

98. Singing in a choir

99. Singing in general

100. Poetry

So there are 100 things that keep me going. Now it’s your turn 🙂

In trying to think about blog topics lately, I’ve kind of gotten a bit itchy. If a lot of people were writing how-to posts before I started my engagement series, even more people are writing them now. And besides, now that I’ve been in the online world for a bit, I am acutely, nay, keenly aware that what works for 1 person may not necessarily for you or you or you. So what can I write about?

Well, I am embarking on a big experiment, and I hope you will help me out. Instead of me just spouting out “This is how to do this,” I thought it would be neat for us to actually converse. You know, I frame out a topic and offer my advice, and then you add to that advice or ask additional questions.

That’s right – I am not framing myself as an expert. I’m just framing my blog as a place to talk about stuff. Think of it like the cafeteria or the student center.

These are the topics I was thinking of but this schedule can be changed as new questions come up. Ready?

Friday, September 16: Let’s Talk About How To Get Started Curating Content

Monday, September 19: Let’s Talk About The Advantages of Curating Content

Wednesday, September 21: Let’s Talk About Getting That First Reply on Twitter

Friday, September 23: Let’s Talk About Some Great Ways To Retweet Content on Twitter

Monday, September 26: Let’s Talk About How To Benefit From Twitter Chats

Wednesday, September 28: Let’s Talk About Following And Unfollowing on Twitter

Friday, September 30: Let’s Talk About How To Use Twitter for Business

Monday, October 3: Let’s Talk About Google Plus. Do You Like It?

Wednesday, October 5: Let’s Talk About How Google Plus Could Work for Businesses

Friday, October 7: Let’s Talk About How We Could Borrow the Google Plus Model of Integrated Tactics

Monday, October 10: Let’s Talk About Facebook and Your Kids. Is It Safe?

Wednesday, October 12: Let’s Talk About How To Make The Most Of A Facebook Page

Friday, October 14: Let’s Talk About How To Use Facebook For Business

Monday, October 17: Let’s Talk About The Facebook vs. Google Plus Death Match.

Wednesday, October 19: Let’s Talk About Using Video To Promote Your Business

Friday, October 21: Let’s Talk About Best and Worst Ways To Use QR Codes

Monday, October 24: Let’s Talk About How To Start A Blog

Wednesday, October 26: Let’s Talk About Blog Platforms

Friday, October 28: Let’s Talk About Blog Design

Monday, October 31: Let’s Talk About How To Get More Blog Comments

Wednesday, November 2: Let’s Talk About Blog Traffic And Blog Promotion

Friday, November 4: Let’s Talk About Integrating Traditional Marketing With Social Media

Monday, November 7: Let’s Talk About Using Social Media For Social Good

Wednesday, November 9: Let’s Talk About Industries That Can Use Social Media More

Friday, November 11: Let’s Talk About Industries That Might Not Need Social Media Right Now

Monday, November 14: Let’s Talk About How To Identify Online Bullying

Wednesday, November 16: Let’s Talk About How We Can Stop/Prevent Online Bullying

Friday, November 18: Let’s Talk About How To Keep Kids Safe Online

Monday, November 21: Let’s Talk About Whether You Need To Start Mobile Marketing

Wednesday, November 23: Let’s Talk About What We’re Thankful For

Monday, November 28: Let’s Talk About The Best Books To Buy For The Holidays!

Wednesday, November 30: Let’s Talk About Our Favorite Online Charities

Friday, December 2: Let’s Talk About Talking About Things – A Series Recap

So there you have it. That’s the plan. Want to blog along with me and link your posts as we go along? Great. Have other topics you’d like to see or questions about what I have?

Hey…let’s talk about it!

Image by Martin Lundgren. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/alvaspappa