the zurkie show - the strongest people still need tending

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

if your garden isn't growing, it's not just the sun's fault.just because you neglect yourself doesn't mean you're a loser.it means there's room to make change and do better.time to change that fertilizer.sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaace.https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

You aren't a loser for neglecting yourself for two weeks. So what? You've procrastinated a bunch of things you had to get done. You haven't gotten back to your friends. Maybe you've been a really bad friend. Maybe your personal hygiene has taken a hit in the last two weeks. Hey, it happens. And I think that that last phrase, it happens,

is something we forget to repeat to ourselves. And therefore, we almost like gaslight ourselves. into thinking that this is just how it's going to be forever, when really all you need to do is reframe it. But reframing is lame. Nobody wants to reframe anything. If you objectively have not looked after yourself, you told somebody that you were going to go to a party,

and then all of a sudden you're playing Minecraft for three hours, and you're like, I don't really want to go to this, so you fade it. And then your friends are kind of questioning you being like, dude, what is going on with you? You aren't yourself. You aren't excited to go after the things that matter to you. You're just like sitting around waiting for something to happen. Like, are you good?

What is there to reframe? Objectively, you're messing up. But the more that you tell yourself that you are, the bigger, the hole you dig in. And just like in Minecraft, what do they tell you? you never dig straight down how do you dig yourself out of this loop well first my friend i want you to know you're talking to an expert i'm somebody that loves to neglect myself especially when i lose momentum when i fight so hard to gain something whether that's consistency in the gym whether that's

feeling like i have a good grasp over my relationships feeling like i'm just like being loved, right, and respected. When I lose that, I throw all of it aside. And I don't take care of myself. And I am the first to revolve my entire day around self-loathing. But I've learned a couple things. My goodness, there's like a fly flying around trying to eat me. I've learned a couple things.

And funny enough, I've learned them from this guy right here. There's, I think, three plants that you can see over there. That big one is the Monstera. The smaller one is this vine right here is a pathos. And then this right here I got for my neighbor. It's a petunia. Very cool. I grew this plant right here when my roommate was going to Europe.

And it was, I remember it. It was kind of like a, like there was like one vine. Okay, I did it for the vine. That's why I did it. I wanted to see this plant grow into something special. And I saw it had a little bit of green. so there was an opportunity to grow it. And this pathos has been growing for roughly a year now, almost,

and it only recently has really become this beautiful vine of wonder and magic. But really, it took a lot of boring hours. A lot of la darring, right? A lot of just like, man, I got to, I gotta just water this guy once this week. I got to give it a bigger pot. And I just, I didn't see a lot happening. I think this is, this is the problem with a lot of us when we get into our lives is we create this kind of routine of despair.

You know that you woke up late. So you know you're going to piss the rest of the day away. You know you're going to sit on your phone. You know you're going to be like, whatever, I'm throwing in the towel. I'm going to start tomorrow. It's like 5 p.m. You're telling yourself, I'm going to go to bed early, so I have a better start on the next day. And then it's 2 a.m.

And you've done it again. Well, why are you doing it again? It's because the care that you probably need is not what you are giving yourself. Instead, you are doing the exact opposite of what your mind and what your body probably need. For me, a lot of the time, that is adventure. I don't give myself that. I confide myself to my four walls, and I tell myself, work and if you don't work, you are a bad person, you are not worthy. When in reality,

says who? I'm not framing things in a matter of like, hey, if you're interested in building a shelf and you want to learn carpentry, go and learn it. It is, you are not a carpenter, shut up and do your job. No, duh, you don't want to listen to yourself. Imagine if you had a boss like that. You've probably had a boss like that. If you worked in food service, or retail that just tells you what to do and doesn't give you a motivating reason. It's like do it because it's your job. You're not going to listen. You don't care.

If you got fired from that job, it's whatever, right? Unless the tips are good. Okay, maybe it's worth it. But why would you listen to yourself if you're going to be disrespectful? If you're going to treat yourself like some kind of disposable worker, you are the only person that can take care of yourself. Rosen lasagna, medium power. minutes. Sounds like

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But instead, what we do is we just, we use ourselves like a, template for what we can get away with. How bad can I treat myself? How terrible can I make my situation? If I'm in a bad spot instead of finding the bridges that I can build myself out of here, I am going to dig straight down. Stop digging straight down. If it's been a week, it's been two and everything you do hasn't changed your circumstances the the plates are still stacking up in the corner of your room you do feel like there is a impending doom to this world which who knows anymore right could be uh if you keep this same routine this same space you're just going to do it again and again. And one thing that has really helped me is understanding, for example,

why I am doing what I am doing in the current moment and time. I kind of had, I've had a weird relationship with my gaming tendencies recently. I'm not a gamer, but when I do play video games, I'm either playing GTA, FIFA, or Minecraft. Those are the, those are the, those are the, Holy three. But even that, like, I haven't played FIFA in years. I'd get cooked if anyone played me right now. But, hey, if you want to, if you want to tap in with Zerk, you might have to, you know, do a little 1V1. I'm, a little PSG versus Real Madrid.

Let's do it. Let's do it. No, but I've been playing Minecraft a lot with my girlfriend. We've been in a long-distance relationship for a year and some change now. And Minecraft has been this really, fun way of just like hopping on and bonding with each other. We don't get to see each other that often. We're pretty far away. So this world has become like this symbolic dating spot. You know, we go on dates. When we go mining, it's a date. When we build our house, it's a date. And that's like a house that we

can actually own right now. So, hey, I'm for it, you know. It's not $400,000. It's like 20,000 cobblestone. I'll take it. But in this. time I've had some older tendencies resurface. I used to distract myself from loneliness, from isolation, from feeling like I wasn't liked by my friends, whatever, feeling like I was worthless by playing copious amounts of Minecraft, a lot of Minecraft. I used to build buildings, skyscrapers. I wanted to like, you know, build the Birch-Kole.

in Minecraft at one point. And so I was studying to do that by building different skyscrapers. And you'd go on these servers where they had creative plots. And you could get plots of land and build on these plots of land, cities and stuff. And for me, it became this escape. And in a similar sense, I've had to make the distinction in Minecraft when I am playing to spend time with my girlfriend. and when I am playing to distract myself from my lack of self-care.

The fact that I'm staying up late, the fact that I'm not on my routine, the fact that I've been kind of neglecting doing simple things for myself, because there's something at the core that is making me feel bad. And it's the fact that I'm not letting myself experiment and have fun. which is weird because isn't that the point of Minecraft right you could take the same example and apply it to the gym a lot of us have have faced this um no matter your your age no matter your gender you go to the gym and you seek refuge in the gym because you were called something someone told you made fun of you for the way that you looked you were too scrawny too big too

wide, too short, whatever. So you go into the gym, to the church of iron, and you start pumping. And when you start pumping, you realize how good it is for you and how it makes you feel and how it's like, it's nice. It's cool seeing your, you know, gains in real time. But you also fall in this trap where you've self-actualized this person that you want to be. You've gained some muscle, whatever, and it can go one of two ways, usually. One is that it's not enough. So then you hop on things like, you know, you start eating the trund baloney sandwiches and you start really, really being obsessed with your body dysmorphia. Another thing is that you realize the person that called you ugly or whatever, they, they never really cared about you. Their opinion doesn't really matter.

And so you are thrown in this weird kind of middle room where you're like, do I keep going to the gym for myself or like do I even need to do this and this thing that in theory was supposed to help you and supposed to be good for you it ends up just like consuming your life it ends up being an escape for a lot of people from that initial problem which i think that going to the gym is good but if you're doing it because somebody told you like you are not worthy the way that you are and you're not doing it to better yourself you will not be able to be able to to build it as a consistent habit. Because it's not about it being fruitful to you.

It's about it being fruitful as a tool for revenge or as leverage against a person that wants did you dirty. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation.

Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it. At the end of the day, nobody is coming to tell you that your suffering is doing any good. No matter how many times somebody sympathizes with you, there comes a point where it's just, it's you're not getting that um that high of like i'm doing something bad that's not good for my well-being and it's like kind of cool that i'm doing this and it's kind of cool that you know i shouldn't be staying up late but i am i shouldn't be you know i should be working on this project but i'm not i shouldn't be playing these games because I really want to work on this idea or spend time with my loved ones, but I'm going to because I'm worthless. You will just continue to create evidence and little

tokens that you can feed yourself with, that you are indeed that. And it's tiring, bro. It's so tiring. You're going to look back at that one day, maybe, and think to yourself, dude, where did where did all this time go? Why did I loathe myself so much? Why did I not give myself a little bit more grace, which is really what a lot of us need, and find a way to work with myself? Because another problem that I've ran into is thinking that life is all or nothing, that every part of your life is either you are committed and it is all of your being that is committed to something, or you give it up. And you're going to learn very quickly, it's not that way. If you treat yourself that way by that same logic, let's say you want

to get better at writing. You tell yourself, I want to be a better writer. I'm going to write every single day. Okay, first day comes around, you write. Second day comes around. It's a little bit harder, but you write again. Third day, you have a doctor's appointment that you forgot about. So you go to that you end up not writing it's over you screwed up you're not a writer you'll never be a writer you prove to yourself that you can't even you can't even stay consistent so you know what it's better not trying because you're a loser if if you were about it you would have done it but you didn't that's one way of thinking versus somebody who actually wants to get better at writing and isn't all about just like, I want this, but it's more of like you're doing this for your ego,

not for your own well-being. They would have missed that day and woken up the next day and been like, all right, let's try again. They would have written on the fourth day and on the fifth. Maybe they missed the sixth, but they keep writing. And eventually you get to a point where over the, course of months which compounds into years you have written and become a better writer than the person that was all or nothing that decided you know what no i'm a failure i'm a loser what whatever could ever do and that is the mindset that actually brings something good to you it's not the one that

holds your mistakes higher than any of your success and it's so weird because in a world where it feels like sometimes you are defined by your mistakes, especially now, everything is surveillance. You know, you say one thing wrong. Could be really bad, right? We're not incentivized to make mistakes. And obviously there's one, there's a level of ignorance and like you knew, you knew what you were doing versus you genuinely didn't. But I'm talking about making mistakes with yourself. I was, you know, I was a little bit of you were doing. I was, you knew, was having a conversation with a homie, and he was just breaking it down. How ridiculous this notion is.

Think about the gym. You're working out till failure. And it's almost a sign of, of like, beautiful progress when you fail on a higher rep of weight than the one you did last week. why is that same mindset not brought into your own life you could argue that it's because the fall off is really really hard and it is man it's it's rough when you go from feeling like you are in this flow things are good to then like brother what am i why am i on this planet it's kind of a drastic like my goodness but that's why you got to increase

the water slowly to bring your boat back up to where you were treading water. Because if you don't, you're going to keep sinking. You're going to keep going down. So I guess I'm learning this as I am saying this out loud. One of my problems is that I don't really do that enough. Instead, I stack the ls on top of each other. Instead of turning my ls, making two of them into a W. and thinking to myself, okay, what has been good?

What has been something that I have done well? I am proud of myself for the things I built in Minecraft with my girlfriend. I think it's really cool. I'm proud of myself for the fact that yesterday, I told myself internally, I want to go out and do something today. I want to go to the Lady Bird Lake Trail in Austin and walk around and film some stuff, and I did that.

I wanted to work on a little, intro for a project I've been working on and I did that. I wanted to call one of my friends and I did that. All of these small things get overlooked in this dust storm of doubt, of you're not doing enough, of it's not perfect so it's not good. But when was it ever perfect? Even in your moments where you felt like you had the most going on for yourself, you were still making mistakes. Even on the things that you have worked so hard for in your life, regardless of that being an art project or that being a national championship, or that being something as simple as a birthday card you made for a relative, you made mistakes. There were decisions you had to go through to find your way. And the funny thing is, I've made this video probably five times now.

but it is one of those things that I have to keep reminding myself because I do it over and over and over again. I forget this lesson. And this is something that is so, I guess, eye-opening in terms of the way I view the world now. Patterns repeat. Your bad habits will creep up on you. And that is okay. A lot of people talk about,

you're supposed to eradicate all the bad. But I don't know if you quite do. I think it's good to continue to fuel the person that you want to be versus the person that maybe right now you are by doing things that push you out of your comfort zone, by like showing up for yourself, being like, you know, your mom when you would wake up in the middle of night and ask, hey, I'm feeling sick.

and she'd bring you some tea, maybe make you take a Tylenol or something. Being that kind of caregiver to yourself, that's struggling. It's so important. When I look at everything now even, dude, I've been cooking for myself for the first time in, in like, months. And I've been making some fire. Dude, I made kebabs the other day. I made, today I made candied bacon. I've been chefing it up like a future husband.

Let me tell you. Which, by the way, if you want, like, you want, like, like W. Riz, no matter man, woman, whoever, however you identify. Learn how to cook. Learn how to cook. It's, it's, you will, you will win people over like you'd never believed. Trust me. Trust me, Daddy. That in ceramics, okay? Because, dude, look at this mug. It looks like, like a moon crater. And inside it's iridescent.

I bought this when I was in, uh, Lance Corona, in Polza. Poland. It's this like little town outside of Krakuf. And I saw this mug. I'm like, dude, I'm buying this. This looks so cool. But yeah, bro. The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road? That's the Volkswagen

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Taste. View and enjoy. Via rail, love the way. Showing up for yourself doesn't mean ruthless discipline all the time. It can be a great way. of keeping yourself in check, getting you to your goals. Yeah, but sometimes you got to be tender because when I am so angry and frustrated and I'm building this pent-up frustration

with it being, you know, having nowhere to go, it is just so counterintuitive. Like, not counterintuitive, counterproductive. It doesn't do anything. What am I, I'm going to punch a wall and then what? I'm going to throw a pen and have it splatter on the on the pavement. What is that done for me? I'm going to take all of my anger and take it out on somebody because I'm really just upset at the fact that

I can't get a grip on my life. How is that fair? It's not fair. And you've had that happen to you. It doesn't feel good. I'm sure your parents have taken out a lot on you at one point of time. We're not, you know, we're not perfect.

it happens. We're not perfect. As if I'm your dad. Bro, what? He's not my dad. No, my God, dude. Crazy. Crazy. Zerky Show, it's good to speak with you again. Sorry for the radio silence. Just I, if I'm completely honest, man, I've been going through it the past past couple three weeks. I just kind of lost my mojo and I was like, what am I doing here? Am I even having fun and it's funny because sometimes when you get out of motion it kind of you become afraid of doing things that you would do on a daily basis maybe some of you speak another language and you've had this experience but when you don't interact with that language for a while and then all of a sudden you're expected to go back into it it kind it kind of makes you freeze up it's

daunting same thing with uh with like swimming for example a pool. If you're about to jump into a pool, there's always this, like, chatter in your mind that makes you ask the question, well, is it going to be cold? Is it going to be warm? Like, I don't want it to be cold, right? So it happens. But again, water's not going to get any warmer by looking at it. You have to jump in. You have to pick up where you left off. And yes, like, in the same vein, I'm going to make another Minecraft analogy. Because I just, dude, this game is just the best thing ever. I'm sorry. It is the best game ever. It replicates real life, and I just, I love it so much, and I will always love it.

People have been hating on the new updates. I think the new updates are freaking awesome. I haven't played this game since 2016, like seriously. And, or 2018, really, when it came out on the PlayStation, when we had like a winter break, dude, me and my friends in high school, we hopped on and just were grinding for like a week straight every day, like 12 hours. It was not healthy, but it was awesome. The game is just like filled with so much random stuff.

There's bees now. There's armadillos. I've loved it. It's been fun to explore. I think it's because I'm playing with, you know, my girlfriend. So it's fun. But the Minecraft analogy. Oh, okay.

If a creeper blows up your base, what will it do for you if your reaction to it is to blow it up with more T&T? have more creepers go in and keep blowing it up. It's going to just make the crater larger. You have to rebuild it. And sometimes when you rebuild your base, you kind of get inspired to do something a little different. You kind of get inspired to be like, wait a minute,

I didn't really like this base. I didn't like the flooring. I didn't like how this looked. Maybe there's more room for me. It opens up your possibilities. but if you do not have your base blown up, you don't ever get to see that angle. So it's kind of a beautiful thing that we struggle through things. It's kind of a beautiful thing that in all of the muck, you are able to pick up where you left off and sometimes change in the present what happened in the past.

Learn from it. And I think this is another one of those things where I'm learning. the world isn't out to get me. The answer is simple. You got to go back to doing what you love. You got to go back to the simple things that make you feel good. You got to go back to understanding that just because you haven't hit somebody back in a month or two, just because you've been kind of distant with people,

it doesn't mean they hate you. It doesn't mean it's over. It doesn't mean that you're not doing something good for yourself. It doesn't mean that you should just quit on all of this. It's not the case. people are forgiving people are forgiving but you have to be forgiving of yourself

in order to seek that kind of forgiveness from others and if you're forgiving of yourself takes care of it I promise that Zerky Show I promise that

today's episode of the Zirky Show was filmed in my beautiful backyard here in Austin, Texas by the way let me show you this plant man this is This is my crown jewel right here. I really, really love this guy.

I've had it for a year and a half. It's not even my plant. It's my roommate's plant. And I've just taken care of it. I mean, look at... Look at this guy. Wow. I've learned a lot from plants.

And if you ever want a little bit of a project, you want to feel like your daily actions, actually add up to something, bro, get a plant, get a pathos, get something easy you can take care of that, like, if you don't water it for a week or two, it's not going to, like, shrivel up and turn into a shrub. It will really change your perspective on life. I'm not even kidding.

It will make you realize there's so much you can do with a little bit of care. Did you know that the Zerky Show is everywhere you go? That is correct. You can watch it. You can scroll it. You can stream it. The choice is yours. If you want to tap in, it's The Zirky Show, all platforms.

You'll find all of us there. Do the things that bring you joy. If you are thinking about something and you think it's that deep, it probably isn't. It's probably a text away from getting done. It's probably a, listen, I don't want to do this anymore. Statement away from not happening and not causing you. Unbelievable amounts of stress. So take that to how you will.

If you're trying something new, just know that I believe in you. And as always, Zirky Show, this never changes and it never will. I am sending you lots of love and which... Be...