Cultivating Happiness with Andy Kushnir

Andy Kushnir is a writer, landscaper, cook, dad and hubby living in LA To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: Hey, it's Zak. It's The Best Advice Show and today we're gonna think in the long term and change our behavior in the short term. ANDY: I grew up playing sports and it occurred to me as I get older and my body continues to break down and get worse and worse by the minute that I can't do this forever and I played soccer growing up and you go and look at a soccer field and there aren't 60 year-olds running around and in the pandemic I struggled with depression and I started to take stock of the older men in my life. None of which I would qualify or describe as happy people and I thought, what's that about? Now, all the older woman in my life are thriving. They are in a million clubs. They're doing a million things. They have a vibrant social life and they seem to be doing very well. And, you know, I started to think, a lot of the older men I know are sitting around and watching MSNBC all day and they don't have anything to do. They don't have a hobby. They don't have a place to go. They don't work anymore. Their whole lives were for work and making money and I so I need to start developing a way to be happy that isn't related to work. So, I began cooking and taking cooking very seriously in my house. We moved during the pandemic from a little apartment in Los Angeles proper and we moved to the valley which is like the suburbs of LA and we got a little house that has a yard and I've taken to re-doing the full yard and that brings me a lot of happiness. I've got all of North Hollywood helping me. All my neighbors have lent me tools which has helped foster community as well through this hobby and being outside has made me happier. Its helped with my depression and its helped me talk about things that aren't just work and honestly I think the whole experience is an exercise in anti-Capitalism. Just finding happiness where I am with what I'm doing and not thinking about how will I pay for blank or where am I in my career. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. --- Help Zak continue making this show by becoming a Best Advice Show Patron @ https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow --- Fill out the TBAS listener survey to help Zak get to know you better. https://forms.gle/f1HxJ45Df4V3m2Dg9 --- Call Zak on the advice show hotline @ 844-935-BEST or email him a voice-memo at [email protected] this episode on IG @BestAdviceShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices