Editorial:The Good Life

Jeff Green | Dec 22, 2011

The Good Life Editorial by Jeff Green

Normally every year we print 50 issues of the Frontenac News and then take two weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s. Every few years, because of the way the weeks line up, we put out a 51st paper before having our annual holiday. That’s what happened this year, and although you wouldn’t think it should matter that much if you add one week to 50, it makes a psychological difference.

When I trudged down to Glenburnie for the December Frontenac County Council meeting last Wednesday morning I was certainly feeling it. It was the day after issue number 50, and my body wanted to be on holiday, but I had no one to blame but myself for deciding to go 51 weeks in the first place.

Not much happened at the meeting until the end, when a rift on council was revealed through what was ultimately an entertaining election for warden; at least it was entertaining to the two of us in the press gallery.

Still, as I was driving over to St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Sydenham after the council meeting I was still feeling like I’d have rather stayed in bed. But when I got to the church and walked into the New Leaf Link Open House I started to feel better.

There was a lot of energy in the room; the volunteers and students all work pretty hard to build a better life for themselves, and they have built an infectious kind of camaraderie.

It even made me feel better about Frontenac County Council. For all the politicking, and all the machinations that go on among members of council, county staff, and yes, the press, everyone is really only trying to make things a little bit better - even if they think everyone else is doing it all wrong.

Ultimately, what we have the privilege to bring to our readers each week are stories about the efforts that people in our region are making, sometimes against heavy odds, to live a good life.

The Good Life is a concept that comes from the Aboriginal heritage that infuses this region. It means that we take the time to look around, to live fully within our physical surroundings, to suffer as little as possible and to help our neighbours suffer as little as possible as well.

The Good Life is not the wealthy life nor is it necessarily the happy life. Happiness is not something we can control, but the good life is an engaged life that faces up to suffering as well as joy.

In one way or another, just about every story we cover all year long in The Frontenac News is about things that people have done or are doing in trying to live a good life. From the stories about school activities to volunteer fund raising efforts, to a fight over how to spend tax money or about someone who is opening a new business, a community newspaper is really about the struggle to build a good life.

People don’t always succeed, and we don’t always succeed in telling their stories well, but the struggle is a worthy effort and that’s what keeps all of us going week after week.

At the same time, we all know that we have to make a living; we have to get by; we have to generate income.

But living as we do in a rural environment, we know that the goal is not so much to make a good living, it is to make a decent living and live a good life.

We don’t celebrate people for their wealth in these communities or in this newspaper. We sometimes celebrate what people do with their wealth, but wealth is not the be all and end all.

We’ll be back on January 12 with our first edition of 2012, and we will be joining the Facebook Generation and the Twitterverse in the New Year, leading up to the launch later in the year of a new web-based service to complement our print edition.

Happy Christmas.