Andy Couturier on Increasing your Happiness by Simplifying Your Life

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer

Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Buddhism, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2018

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andy Couturier lived in rural Japan many years ago and it changed his life. As he lived alongside people who were living profoundly satisfying lives, he learned what they were doing (or not doing!) to achieve this level of satisfaction and then he wrote about it in his book, The Abundance of Less: Lessons in Simple Living from Rural Japan. In this interview, Andy shares this wisdom and his experiences in such a way that you can apply the concepts in a practical manner in your life starting today.

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In This Interview, Andy Couturier and I Discuss...

The Wolf Parable
His book, The Abundance of Less: Lessons in Simple Living From Rural Japan
His time living in rural Japan
That the people in rural Japan do not use money to entertain themselves
Their way of life is slow, humble, connected to their community and time for individual contemplation
How they don't suffer from "time poverty"
That all life is connected in rural Japan
Because there is less to do, the garner more enjoyment from each task
The consumerism and busy characteristics of the industrialized west
How "convenience speeds you up"
Ways to make meaningful strides towards living a lifestyle inspired by the lifestyle in rural Japan
Simplify simplify simplify
Travel less, know your home city better
Make meaningful connections with friends by spending more time together
Diving deeper into things in your life in a methodical, thoughtful way
I love doing _____. Wouldn't it be wonderful to spend more time doing it?
Ways to make time for what we care about
How they live profoundly satisfying lives in rural Japan
That you don't have to "go back in time" to live this kind of life
Building his house entirely with hand tools

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We can live much more deeply connected lives, but we have to figure out how to do it.
0:12.4	Welcome to the One You Feed.
0:14.4	Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
0:19.0	quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
0:24.6	And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
0:28.8	We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.
0:33.6	We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
0:36.4	We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
0:39.9	But it's not just about thinking.
0:41.9	Our actions matter.
0:43.4	It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.
0:48.2	This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction.
0:52.6	How they feed their good wolf.
0:59.3	Thanks for joining us.
1:02.4	Our guest on this episode is Andy Couturier, who spent four years studying sustainable living in rural Japan.
1:08.8	There, he worked with local environments, wrote for the Japan Times,
1:12.8	and studied how Japanese aesthetics can help us develop new forms of writing.
1:16.8	Andy has also hitchhiked to the world.
1:18.8	He has been working with the Japanese and the Japanese.
1:20.8	He has been working with the Japanese and the Japanese.
1:22.8	He has been working with the Japanese and the Japanese.
1:24.8	He has been working with the Japanese and the Japanese.
	...

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