WO Magazine Spring 2016 | Page 56

LIFESTYLE untouched with the exception of a segment given to the government for an eco-friendly hydro-electric plant. When he feels like it – and only then – Teiva will take visitors on jeep tours through his land. He’ll show you which plants grow fruit you can eat, pick you a blossom for your hair and tell you all about how to make medicines from various leaves. What he won’t tell you about is any plan for developing his land because he doesn’t have one. Though he could easily sell his property to any one of a dozen hotel chains eager to build mega-resorts, Teiva won’t. That would mean he’d have to find other places to fish and hunt, and there’d be no place for his banana trees. He’d have money to build a grand new house, money to travel, money to buy designer suits and money to change his world….which is the very last thing he wants to do. So Teiva won’t sell anything and instead, will hold onto his land and continue to wear his pareo and live his life as he always has – authentically. Features And what about us? We can’t all hop on a plane and jet off to Patagonia or Costa Rica or Tahiti to live in the jungle, grow our own food and open jeep tour companies. Is there no hope for us to live authentically? WE CERTAINLY LAUGH A LOT MORE THAN WE USED TO There is – and it’s well within our grasp. We can take a page from each of these stories. We can ask ourselves what we really want from our lives, what relationships really mean something to us, and what work makes us LIZ FLEMING IN ADDITION TO EDITING WO, LIZ FLEMING IS ALSO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF CRUISE & TRAVEL LIFESTYLES MAGAZINE. SHE’S A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO AIR TRANSAT’S ATMOSPHERE AND THE TORONTO STAR. SHE’S THE AUTHOR OF TWO AMAZON EBOOKS “SINCE YOU’RE HERE, WE MIGHT AS WELL SHAG” AND “207 TRAVEL TIPS BECAUSE 101 JUST WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ENOUGH.” 54 | whiteoaksclub.com | spring 2016 satisfied and fulfilled. Like Cathy and her children who are largely separated from the distractions of television and wifi, we can think hard about what we can subtract that might be keeping us from what we want to hear. Like Teiva, we can share our most precious things only when we want to, and only with those we choose. Like Ted, we can decide that making money is only important if it can in turn make you happy and healthy. If not, then it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. We can take time away from email and Facebook and Pinterest and Snapchat and Instagram and all the other time-gobbling things that fill our world and spend it talking to our families and our friends – face to face. We can go on trips that take us not to Vegas or to Disney but back to the wild, where we can hear the birds instead of the slot machines and feel the sun on our faces, not the smog from the traffic. We can plant a few tomato plants in the back yard, watch them grow fat and red and then marvel at the deliciousness we’ve created. We can get in touch with what makes us most content – and least stressed - and in the process…maybe…one quiet night when we’re gazing at the starry sky we haven’t looked at in so long, we might just realize that we’ve hit the mark. We’ve connected to ourselves and found the magic that comes from living authentic lives.