227: Andy Couturier - The Abundance Of Less • Enjoying The Process • Thinking For Yourself
The Jesse Chappus Show
Jesse Chappus
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2018
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andy Couturier moved to Japan in mid twenties with his partner Cynthia to teach English. Their plan was to save money then come back to the US and buy some land. After returning, they built a house in California using only hand tools, developing a piece of raw land into a functioning rural homestead.
Andy has studied Buddhist meditation and many other Asian philosophical systems. He has been a researcher for Greenpeace and has taught writing for more than twenty years.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Andy and his partner built a cabin using only hand tools
- If you give yourself time, a lot of things are enjoyable
- Making sure you're enjoying the process
- The misery of too many things going on
- Putting buffers in so you're not rushing from one thing to the next
- Making time to look at how you operate
- Andy's flip phone and how it helps him slow down
- The tools you use craft who you become
- What is efficiency getting you?
- Moving to Japan in his mid twenties with his partner Cynthia, to teach English
- It's a precious opportunity to think for yourself
- What does it mean to be alive?
- The origins of Andy's draw to nature
- Our health depends not just on ourselves but also on our community and being connected to people
- Making time for contemplation each week
- A day in the life of Andy
- The modern predicament is a puzzle we all need to figure out
- Assess, be/think critical, and choose what is true for you
- Going deep into things
Show sponsors:
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Related links:
Andy Couturier - The Abundance of Less (book)
The Abundance of Less (Andy's book website)
Andy Couturier - Writing Open the Mind (book)
The Opening (Andy's writing website)
Listen to Ryan Nicodemus previously on TUHP (episode #132)
Transcript:
Tap here to go to the show notes to view/download the transcript
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | when you have a machine do something for you or when you have a group decide something for you |
| 0:05.2 | you lose a very precious opportunity to think for yourself. Hello and |
| 0:15.0 | welcome to the Ultimate Health Podcast episode 227. |
| 0:20.0 | Jesse Chapp is here with Marty Wasserman |
| 0:22.0 | and we are here on a weekly basis to take your health to the next level. |
| 0:25.2 | This week our featured guest is Andy Katuriay. |
| 0:27.8 | He moved to Japan in his mid-20s with his partner Cynthia to teach English and save some money to come back to the US and buy some land. |
| 0:35.2 | After returning to the US, they built their house in California, using only hand tools which we talk |
| 0:40.5 | about in the show, and they develop a piece of raw land into a functioning rural homestead. |
| 0:45.2 | Andy has studied Buddhist meditation and many other Asian philosophical systems. |
| 0:49.9 | He has been a researcher for Greenpeace and taught writing for more than 20 years. |
| 0:54.3 | It was truly a pleasure having Andy on the show this week. |
| 0:57.1 | There is something just so special about him. |
| 0:59.3 | He is very Zen and you guys are going to hear the calmness in his voice. |
| 1:03.2 | And the message he brings to the podcast is something we all need to hear. |
| 1:06.8 | We talk a lot about the process of slowing down |
| 1:10.1 | and not making endless to-do lists that we have our days jam-packed and |
| 1:14.7 | something else we talk about is enjoying the process more, not getting so caught up in |
| 1:19.3 | the end result but really enjoying the process and we also get into how it's really important to think for yourself. |
| 1:27.0 | Make your own decisions and you'll understand a little bit more about what that means |
| 1:30.0 | and also to make time for contemplation every week spend some time sit back relax |
| 1:36.3 | grab a cup of tea and slow down so lots of great messages in today's episode here we |
... |
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