The load we carry with us

During the  past few weeks, I've been talking to many of the business owners in our town, encouraging them to attend a February 24 meeting where elections and a mini-workshop will take place - both of which relate to our town's future:  a scary and monolithic prospect, if ever there was one.
Dealing with each other as business owners is a bit of a test at the best of times. As each other's customers, we all want to please. But as independent thinkers, we need to express ourselves and not get too personal.
When things go wrong, business can get personal. Grudges hang on, resentment and bad feelings can linger. For the most part, we all try to avoid the latter scenarios.
This week, we reprint our bridal edition; perhaps we should have renamed it: Remarried instead of Just Married. We weren't happy with the quality of what we sent out last week and so we want to set it right. It's a great opportunity for our competitors to point out our shortcomings, but at the heart of it, we risk that in the name of setting things right.
In business, as in life, there is a time to set aside what everyone else may be thinking to do what you think is right.
Yet worrying about doing what is right is the single thing that can make me lose sleep at night and often, it makes me want to leave town to get some perspective. Being left with the feeling that it is all up to me is too heavy a burden, even while another voice inside me is saying that of course it is not all up to me. During a recent interview I heard on the radio, performance coach Peter Jensen pointed out the tremendous strain it was on athletes to hear words like, "Don't let us down," and "We're counting on you." These words can be a burden to athletes; think of carrying many weights in a bag on your back. As a sports psychologist who has successfully helped Olympic athletes perform at their best, Jensen well understands the pressures brought to bear on high-profile athletes. Imagine our Olympic athletes and the expectations of team-mates, family members and home-town fans - not to mention the public, the cheering crowds and the television cameras. There are people everywhere: watching, cheering and hoping.
On a much smaller scale, that feels like what we face every week. We run a race and push across the finish line every week. We record history, tell stories, encourage change, strive to inspire and provide a platform for new ways of thinking. The sack that we carry contains the notion of bringing you the news you want, the pictures you expect to see, accuracy, timeliness and a healthy dose of changing the world. There is never a doubt that we will cross the finish line, but at the end, we hope we don't trip up or miss our step; a slip could cost us our integrity or make you lose your faith in us.
Each week with all that we do, we add to the layers of relationships we have with all of you reading this and so, I dare say, do all of us doing business in small communities.
When I am discouraged, I tend to remember the foul-ups and the missed opportunities more than our successes.
But when a lady whom I greatly respect recently told me that she had misgivings about a harsh letter to the editor she had sent to us years ago, I was surprised to realize that I did not even remember the letter. But at the time, I am sure I took it to heart. I always do.
Ultimately, getting a little distance from my favourite town makes me see everything in a different light and from away, I see my place waiting for me. The day that I don't see it will be the day that I step aside.
I have come to know that we must all keep moving forward and must also accept that, from time to time, we may let each other down, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes, because of the choices we make.
As one of our newer customers said to me this week, "We are on your side". In truth, we are all on the same side, wanting our towns to prosper in ways that enable us to retain our sense of community and relationship to each other.
We all want to improve upon what we do and we want honest, well-meaning feedback
While we cannot know the weight of someone else's burden, what we say and do can go a long way towards making that load lighter.