Empathy can be a hard trait to acquire, and many wouldn’t even want it. The technical definition is as follows.

source

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I like to put myself into other people’s shoes often, because it gives me more understanding about how they might feel or what they may be going through. To do this helps me to interact with compassion and tact, so that I do not come across as a big jerk unintentionally. Some of this empathy was conveyed in my recent post about whale shoes.

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From my viewpoint on steemit, it can be hard to put myself in the shoes of others. Somehow, @papa-pepper is huge around here and some even say he’s a legend. How in the world this happened is beyond me. For many of you, you’d like to know what it is like to have over 800 followers and a rep that is almost up to 70. Personally, I wanted to know what it would be like to be a newcomer again.

I recently made a comment to @mattclarke who replied, "Says the guy with 800 followers :)," which, in a potentially humorous manner shows some of the current difference between myself and many of the other users on steemit. ( @mattclarke has 155 followers and a rep of 54 and @papa-pepper currently has 818 followers and a rep of 69. That's a big difference, and we therefore have different points of view.)

@papa-pepper joined steemit at a very good time. Sure, it could have been better, but it was a great time for a complete n00b to try to figure out what he was supposed to do on this platform. My skills have been increasing and so has my investment of time, but I knew that my success and results were really not reproducible. I can’t teach others how to get the results that I got based off of what I did because steemit really isn’t like that.

Many of you know that I can make some quality posts on a consistent basis and that I can think and convey my thoughts in writing to some reasonable degree as well.

So, I decided to start a second account.

My goal in doing so was simply to see what it would be like to start all over and come in fresh without knowing anyone. The basic “rules” were also simple.

• Be anonymous and not let everyone know that the new account was actually @papa-pepper

• Not have @papa-pepper help the new account with votes or direct publicity

• Do my best to produce high-quality content from that account everyday

• Pick a difficult area to succeed in

• See how well the account could do on its own

Well, it’s been about two months now, and here is how I have done.

• 58 Followers

• 226 Posts

• 52 Reputation

• Estimated Account Value $9.14

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Yeah, not too impressive. Steemit can be tough, can’t it? That total account value is horrible! I mean, @papa-pepper could probably make more than that in a half hour if he tried.

I even entered one of the Poetry Slam Challenges from @prufarchy and one of the Steemit Photo Challenges from @jamtaylor just to try to draw some more attention to the account. Eventually I even put some upvotes in the @steemsports events just to try to build up the account value.

But, when it takes you two months to make $10, you have not really succeeded, have you?

Because of my Christian faith, I chose to create a purely Christian account and stick to spiritual posts for the most part (except for the contest entries).

This would prevent certain curation groups from choosing my posts, because some shy away from overtly religious or political posts.

For the most part, the account has done well in interaction and adding to the community, but it never got a nice payout.

Early on, @stan (who is the father of @dantheman) took notice of me and even did a post where he promoted my work. I had only been on steemit for about ten days under that username and already was getting some great publicity in the area that I was focusing my attention posting in because of the plug from @stan.

Still, the biggest payout that I ever got was $1.07 total.

CONCLUSION

In the end, I gained some insight into how difficult steemit really can be. I try to encourage others around here anyway, but this gave me some more insight into how others may be feeling around here. I do still think that steemit is a very lucrative opportunity for people, especially right now. Even @papa-pepper would have given up before if it wasn’t for the payouts that I got early on.

If I had started the second account to make money, I would have called it a failure and quit. However, if I liked the interaction and thought that I was adding something to community, then I would have deemed the experiment a success and kept right on going.

So, what does the future hold?

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Q: Will @papa-pepper keep doing what papa does?

A: Yes, I plan on being here on a daily basis posting, interacting, and upvoting.

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Q: Will I keep running the other account?

A: Yes. For me, it makes sense.

Anyone who only wants my Christian material can stick to the other account. Anyone who would rather not get too much of that can just stick with papa. If someone wants to check out all that I have to offer in both areas, then they can follow both usernames and enjoy that. Papa will keep being papa and though I cannot separate who I am, and though my beliefs do carry over into the other aspects of my life, the deeper theological issues will be sorted through in my posts in the other account. Also, you won’t find gardening tips or recipes being posted in the other account, because “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Remember, if you enjoy @papa-pepper, he is only what he has become because of Jesus Christ anyway, so I hope that you can respect that.

P.S. My goal in this has not been to be sneaky and secretive to trick people or some other purpose like that. I wanted to do an experiment and see what the results would be. From what people like @stan and others said about some of my posts from the other account, they were of a very high quality and some users even believed them to be Biblically accurate.

Feel free to check them out those posts if you are interested, but just remember that they are written about earthly, eternal, and spiritual topics from the Christian worldview, to the best of my understanding. As with anything, I am not expert and I can be wrong. However, I must still do my best to understand accurately and live within the parameters of that understanding. Speaking of limited understanding and opinions…

In my opinion, you guys are the best!

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As always, I’m @papa-pepper and here’s the proof:

proof-of-other-account-name

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FOLLOW

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Awesome Handcrafted @papa-pepper logo kindly donated by @vlad - Thank you!!

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OPERATION TRANSLATION logo provided by @oecp85.

(click link above for more info on Operation Translation.)