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.