After moving out of Los Angeles with his family nearly five years ago, actor Ian Somerhalder has turned his focus to more gratifying endeavors, showing there is more to life than Hollywood. The “Vampire Diaries” star and Reed share a passion for the environment and a sustainable way of life, and have found that farming and producing their own food has been far more rewarding. “What my parents taught us very early is, if you look around, there is a balance in nature.
If you give back as much or more than you take, then you will find an enormous bounty of health and happiness and success and all these things that people want and dream,” said Somerhalder. He stressed the importance of teaching their two young children strong values such as building strong connections within the community and respecting nature. “That’s what we teach our kids and our friends teach their kids, is to be respectful of the balance and really appreciate that balance and live that balance,” he said.
“And with that balance comes boundless harmony and boundless food and energy and fun and all those things that we want, but you can’t just take and take and take. It doesn’t work.” Somerhalder noted with success comes failure, and it’s a valuable life lesson he’s learned through farming and hopes to instill within his children.
“You learn some of the things that you try and plant may not work, but other ones do, and then you get into this system of when the kids are involved and y.