The Rural Voice, 2002-12, Page 10Warren D. Moore
Forest Specialist
specializing in:
* Woodlot Management
Timber Marking and Marketing
* Tree Pruning, Tree Removal
* Tree Planting Services •:.
,Certified Managed Forest Plan Approver
Provincial Tree Marker
Blyth 523-9855
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Wanting so much, getting so little
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives near
Blyth, ON.
It's Christmas, and across North
America untold billions of dollars
will be spent to make sure our
children's slightest desires are met.
In the real world, where people go
to bed hungry or without a roof over
their heads, the excess of our western
lifestyle is obscene — but we don't
live in the real world. We live in the
insulated, inward -looking world of
North America. Yes we know there
are hungry people out there but few
of us compare our lives to theirs
regularly. Instead we're looking
around at others here and comparing
ourselves to them. No matter how
much we have, we can always find
somebody who has more.
I suppose there are still people out
there who are in the situation my
parents were in the 1950s, unable to
buy the gifts their children dreamed
of. For a huge part of the population,
however, the question isn't about
getting a gift for the kids, but how
many gifts. Often it seems a child just
has to mention some toy and it
becomes his or hers. After all, every
parent wants his or her child to be
happy.
But the lesson we seem to be
sending is that money and possess-
ions buy happiness. Not happy? It
probably means you need more
possessions.
I can remember, as a child,
dreaming of things I couldn't expect
to get — whether for Christmas or at
other times of the year. There was a
yearning involved that made it even
more special if you actually got what
you wanted. Sometimes it meant
saving every penny you could lay
your hands on until you could buy
that baseball glove or football. The
sense of joy at actually getting what
you wanted was immense.
And yet you also learned that
attaining those long -sought-after
possessions didn't guarantee happi-
ness. There were moments, hours or
days of joy, but then the rest of your
life took over again. In the long run it
has to be how you feel about yourself
and the joy shared with your loved
ones that will make the difference
between happiness and unhappiness.
Call me old-fashioned, but I
wonder if parents are really doing
their children favours by making their
slightest wish the parents' command.
What happens to our country when
these children who are used to having
everything, become adults who
expect the world should be shaped to
fulfill their every whim?
I know a couple of youngsters
who will likely get plenty of goodies
this Christmas but will be missing the
thing that probably matters most. I've
watched over the years as these kids
have received so many Christmas
gifts the tree virtually disappeared
behind a wall of packages.
But as they open their presents
this Christmas day their father won't
be there. He had two children, a
beautiful wife, a monstrous home, all
the gadgets he could want, and yet he
felt he was missing something and
broke up the home seeking what was
missing with another woman.
Rural life has generally been more
grounded than urban life because of
the practicalities of the way we live
with the realities of nature. Still,
sometimes I think we're like that
wayward father, chasing after a way
of life we think will bring happiness
and ignoring what we already have.
The lure of the urban life we see
on TV, filled with possessions and
clothes, sometimes leads us toward a
lifestyle we can't support from
farming or other rural jobs. Chasing
this lifestyle can mean abandoning
the unglamorous but rewarding rural
lifestyle. We give up farming because
we want things our farm income can't
buy us. We destroy our small comm-
unities because we want to shop in
the same big stores as city people.
The greatest gift we can give our
children sometimes is to say no to the
idea posessions bring happiness and
to show them, by our lifestyles, that
there are more important things.0