the zurkie show - why do you need revenge

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

revenge is worth the journey, only if you find your humanity at the end of it.hope you are all well.sending every single one of you lots of love and peaaaaaaaace.https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

My life has been the easiest when I had a villain in my mind. When I made somebody who had said a slick comment, treated me differently because of the way I looked, usually it was a weight thing or didn't believe in a certain vision I had for myself, it made every action in my life completely flawless. It was almost like I was being perceived by this person all of the time. And so I wanted to ensure that whatever opportunity I had, I could show them that I was him.

But I came to a realization, as I got older, that having an enemy doesn't give you the satisfaction that you crave. Because when I would get to a point where my enemy could congratulate me, what was I supposed to do? All of that hard work was for them to see me at this light. was finally here. They could finally see this beautiful version, this cocoon butterfly that has gone into the world, has taken all the criticism that they've put on me. And I'm here. I'm standing. 10 foot down, 10 foot down, 10 toes down. And those people do not give a shit about you.

They don't care. Think about it this way. Let's say you've gone in your life on this kind of arc. for a lot of people they get cheated on, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's in business, whether it's like friendship. Nobody talks about how freaking hard it is when somebody is like your bro, your friend, and then they throw you under the bus

just so they can get closer to some kind of girl. Just so they can make you seem like a clown, like a jester, and they can be the cool one. Which is, you know, as you grow older, you learn to ignore these people and not to associate with them because they're nothing but trouble,

but it hurts. When you're young, it hurts because you think that you have some kind of bond. You might, you know, know them from school. You might know them throughout your childhood. And all of a sudden it's just like, bro, all of that meant nothing. Loyalty is another thing I think that we should discuss maybe a little bit later. But first, when you have this kind of situation, you then internalize it. And you tell yourself that you want to get back.

you want to get revenge. Everything becomes about the revenge. It becomes about getting the girl back. It becomes about showing the guy that dumped you for a girl that you think is, you know, just hideous. Showing him that he messed up. It becomes a story. And the problem is, for a lot of us, this is the only story that is piloting our life. We got nothing else.

We got nothing that interests us. We got nothing that truly is calling out to a life. our soul to continue. These tiny infractions on our being become the ethos of survival. And I was right there, man. I went through those phases where I had somebody who, you know, was playing with me. And then they went back to their boyfriend. I had these phases where I felt like, well, I'm not being seen by the people I want to be seen by. But what I want you to understand is you have to be very, very careful. Because when you do finally get that spotlight and you do finally get that revenge arc finale, you are left in the wasteland of disappointment.

You are left in such a place that makes you question why you even went on that journey to begin with. But I don't want you to freak out because oftentimes in my life what I've found out is that it was the journey. Maybe the reason why I went on a weight loss binge or the reason why I went on a weight loss binge or the reason that I decided I was going to put my best foot forward and do it because of a spiteful thought, you learn different tips and tricks along the way. Little BuzzFeed life hacks, if you will. You learn more about yourself. You learn more about people who want to help you. Something as simple as like, let's say, someone made fun of your drawing, and you internalize it. Instead of giving up, you tell yourself, I'm going to draw every single day until that

person cannot make fun of me. This push to draw every single day becomes the leading domino into you figuring out how to be a better artist, how to get better at your fine kind of tracing, and also it forces you to like run these drills when you're working to get to a point where you feel comfortable in your own skin and in your own talent. That's a beautiful thing and that thing wouldn't have happened if you didn't get made fun of. But again, it's an external thing. what happens when there are no more externals? What happens when you kind of grow out of it and you realize people aren't really praying for my downfall anymore?

Because nobody has the energy to care about someone's downfall. They're too busy worrying about why Publix costs $30. Every time you go to Publix, it's $30. Every time you have to pay your bills, it's $500, right? Nobody cares about another person's downfall when there's like real life at play. you become the villain. Oh! You become the villain of your own life.

Yeah, yeah, this is where it's all leading to. You become the villain of your own life because there's nobody else to chain you. And this is why post-college, early adulthood, sailing into the rest of your life, dude, it becomes a battle. And it becomes a shadow battle. battle, shadow warfare kind of thing.

Where it's not, you do not have this like, picturesque villain. You don't have this caricature in your mind of what this person has said to you in the past or what this person is, how they've done you wrong. You're not spending every waking moment trying to get the respect from somebody that's never going to give it to you. Instead, it's you. So you almost have to decide, are you going to be the villain?

in your own story or are you going to work with yourself? Very difficult. And the truth is, it's a pendulum. It's a pendulum. Like there are moments in my life where I am the villain. I'm the villain. It was never about the money. I'm totally the villain, dude.

I am the joker of my life and I do everything. I put booby traps up just so I can. mess, mess up whatever thing I'm doing. A prime example of this is, you know, I will get down at myself of how I look in the mirror. Maybe I haven't been, like, good on my diet. And then, you know, diet, I hate using that word. Let's find a different word. I've been bad on sticking to eating whole foods and, like, trying to keep a good, a good

routine. And it will, there's a little voice. The villain kind of comes out and makes you think, like, well, this is never going to happen. Like this is, you know, I've already tried this. Even though you haven't, you really haven't. And so I'm going to give up and I'm going to give in. And it's not even like there's a version of you that's like speaking, like there's like a devil on your shoulder.

It's usually you subscribe to the idea that you are going to be this person. You like willingly give your $12 a month to the version of you that is not who you want to be. That doesn't represent the values that you internally want to be like. And the honest secret to change in life is you have to start acting like the person that you want to be like. And that's how you become that person. Because it is all about the actions. You know, it is all about the evidence that you bring forth. We try ourselves, like we are in some kind of, you know, lawsuit every single day.

It's like we're our own lawyer, our own judge, and it's just never ending. And so if you have undisputable evidence that you've been going to be. going after something good, it's so much easier to go through your life. But when you have listened to the villainous whispers of your mind, it is so easy to feel like you are at a, at like a battle with yourself. One battle after another, man, no Leo DiCaprio. You're really, really just going and highlighting everything that you mess up all of the time. And you know what's the hardest part about it is that there is no revenge arc. What, you're going to get revenge on your old self, maybe, but I haven't found that to be successful. You got to accept the way that you are.

And you have flaws and you suck sometimes and you will hate yourself sometimes and you just got to accept it that human nature inherently the way that we are is nuanced. It's so nuanced. Nobody is is perfect and we have been led to believe that there are perfect people that walk around us and they're actually reptilians and they run the government. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. That's a joke. But no, what I mean is that there are people that present themselves as if they're Uber disciplined and present themselves as if they are the elite level of man or woman or person that's galloping through life. And no, those people mess up. They probably have messed up more times than you have. That's how they're able to keep some kind of discipline. That's how they're able to have some kind of Forsyth, Forsyth County in Georgia.

That's how they're able to have some kind of vision. And they're able to see like, okay, I've gone through this failure many, many, many times. I don't want to keep doing it. I have to kind of safeguard it and, like, parent myself a little bit. but you just don't get anywhere hating yourself. You really don't. You don't get anywhere bashing all of the bad things that you do. Because guess what?

You feel bad. You feel guilty and you do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. You tell yourself that you're such a loser for sitting inside of your bedroom

and it gives you this guilty feeling that you've been using, you know, whether it's binges of watching stuff or eating stuff or not seeing your friends, not participating in your own life. And so you become a bystander and you go into those same habits. And the whole thing about like nobody is coming to save you is very true. But if you are waiting on someone to hurt you so you have some kind of justification to go and change your life,

I think that's very foolish. Because I've done that. I was in a phase this last like year too where I'm like, man, it feels like I got no motion. It feels like I'm not really doing what I've wanted to do with my life. I feel like I'm not participating.

I'm not like challenging myself enough. Life is cushy, it's nice. I can afford to eat a little bit more than I did in the past. I can afford to go to nice places. I can afford these things and it made me comfortable. It made me very docile.

And there's no amount of matchas, sweet treats, yoga Pilates, run clubs, lifting, that is going to fix it. Because if you still hold yourself as the villain in your life, then the villain will rule. And you'll, it will continue to, you will be patching up the mistakes that you continue to allow yourself to make. So what is the alternative? The alternative is you have to realize where you're at.

which is uncomfortable, and I hate it. I hate it, I hate it. I hate realizing that I've let myself, you know, gain weight. I hate realizing that I don't have good habits. I hate realizing that I had something good and I let it kind of rot right in front of me. I hate realizing that I just, it was, the answer was always working a little bit harder

and going outside of my comfort zone. And when I didn't want to do, you know, when I was sure that I could only do two miles at a at a nine minute 30 pace. It was that extra, let's just try it, let's try to get to three that would break the barrier in my mind and make me go, wait a minute. I can do this, I can do this.

I am choosing not to. And when you do hit that low, when you do see yourself for who you are right now, then you can start operating in your life out of a place of love and not fear, which then we kind of get into like, what does that even mean? We hear this a lot,

oh, you have to be a lover, not a hater, whatever. It means that you start doing good for yourself because you want to win at your own life. Not because somebody else is telling you that you should do it. You're doing it because the internal motivation is, I want something better. My life sucks. I want something better.

And in the same way as people tell you, nobody's coming to save you. Nobody is going to turn on the ignition to your own, your own dream or your own aspiration or, you know, nobody is going to lend you the money to fix your financial problems. That's not how it works, man. I wish it did. No, it doesn't. So then you're kind of left in this, uh, in this interesting position where you have to be the self-starter. You have to turn on the key. You have to tell yourself, I'm going to take this risk. I'm going to try something new. Um, for me, I want to get back in front of people, man. I want to do more. more live shows. And I also want to shut my mouth about what I want to do and just go out and

fucking do it. Sorry. That's how I feel. And it's so frustrating because then when you start to kind of like look at the damage or the hurricane that has been you letting your life just go by and not have any kind of focus in it, then you realize how much damage there is and how much of this was all your fault. And that is, that is brutal. It's brutal. When you take the first week and two weeks to kind of examine and be like, damn, man, I was really good on, on, you know, staying on track with my journaling. I was really good at reaching out to my grandparents making sure that they were good. I was really good at volunteering. I was really good at getting 10,000 steps a day. I was really good at doing these things. This sucks that I am, I can't do this right now in the same way that I could.

But the key in that is right now. Because the evidence is already there. You did do it. You did do it at some kind of point in time. So to say that, oh, I can't ever do that again is just like foolish. It's not true. Because if we look at the evidence, there was a period in time where you were consistent, where you were proud of yourself, where you were doing something that you felt like was good.

So now we have to figure out what was not the end version of you that was. was doing all those things, but what was the spark that actually started that for you? You are only cooked when you decide that you are cooked. You are only cooked when you give in to this manufactured hopelessness of the world. Because it is easier for you to be hopeless and spend more money on things you do not need, or it is easier for you to be hopeless and binge yourself to no more existence. it's an easy thing to do and there are a lot of people in this world

that make money off that. The hard thing to do is to live your life like it matters and live it in a perspective of I am going to try. I'm going to give it an honest effort. I'm not going to succeed first time but I'm going to try.

And just think about it. Like if you tried the way that you try for other people when somebody is upset at you, when somebody is, you know, you really can. about a friendship or relationship and you're like I'm willing to try which is always the worst words you want to hear from your girlfriend is I'm willing to try what does that mean you're willing to try okay uh no but if you're like willing to give yourself like the just be loyal to yourself man be loyal to yourself you don't don't let yourself be pushed around by other people and get to a point where you you've lost a piece of yourself because you just continuously listen to what somebody else is going to say about you. You listen to how other people want you to act. Be loyal to who you are. There is no more loyalty

in this world, it seems like. Companies aren't loyal to their workers anymore. You're a number. You can change yourself, you know, get another worker. People that serve you food aren't even loyal to the companies that they work at. They don't care about the food because they're not even getting paid enough to care. So if everyone else is going to be disloyal, maybe you're the person that can at least be loyal in this world to your own self. And that's a heck of a lot better than going through life, feeling like you are just pulled in every direction because you need to be loyal to everyone except for you. Because loyalty ain't easy. And if there's one thing that matters, in my opinion in this world, it's how you treat yourself.

Because that's a direct reflection of how you're going to treat other people. If you don't even respect yourself enough to keep yourself in good hygiene, if you don't even respect yourself enough to go out of your comfort zone, take a walk when you need a break, listen to yourself, push yourself when it's needed. Then how are you going to be able to do that for other people? You won't. And now is the time to do it, man.

we need more people that are loyal to their own selves. We need people that understand the importance of saying no, that understand the importance of loving themselves so much, that they're able to not just be like, I don't want any part of this. I don't want to be a part of this friend group. I don't want, this is bad for me.

I don't want to be a part of, uh, you know, a lifestyle that's deeply going to affect me that I can't keep up with. So, look, hatred is a, is an unbelievable.

believable feeling. It makes you feel like you have all this energy and the spite that you can expend until it hits a point where you have no more of it, where usually you've reflected enough or the latter, you have come face to face with that Goliath that in your mind you've decided this is the villain of my life and you realize that they never cared about you and they'll never care about you. They never cared about you and they will never care about you. And so all of this performative, I'm going to change myself, I'm going to become this person, I'm going to get revenge. It's all BS. It's all a cope for you. Still, you should be happy you went on the journey. You should be happy that you did those things. Maybe it was the kickstart that you needed.

But in the journey, the most important thing that you realize is that you're doing this for you. And your loyalty does not lie in the villainry, right? Like it doesn't lie in proving somebody wrong. It lies in you proving yourself right. I'm going through it in real time. I've made myself into a villain in my life. I've told myself, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that. It's bullshit. It's all bullshit.

And it has been a cope for me to just not take responsibility for the things that mattered in my life. And just to look at things sideways. And you know what? We don't have time for it. Time is zipping. I would much rather feel like I tried everything. And if it's not supposed to work out for me, if I'm really, nothing is supposed to work, then nothing will work, and that's fine. And I'm going to be in the ground.

Who cares? I won't. It's fine. But the truth is that won't happen. When you take your life seriously, you're going to start falling in love with who you are and the process of doing good things for yourself and the process of doing hard things because not all things that are good for you are easy. Most of them are very difficult. But if you do it enough, you'll get to a point where you're like, I love myself, dude. I put myself through so much discipline. I put my put, put that a little little I, I put myself through so much hardship, so many moments where I didn't know if I could do it, but I told myself, there is no other option. I have to. I have to because it matters to me and I love myself. And I'm going to do these things. I'm going to move somewhere that I don't know the language

of. I don't know the people, but I'm going to immerse myself into this because I want to grow as a person. I am going to read some books. I am going to watch a movie that's longer than 10 minutes. that I can two X. I'm going to sit there and go through the boring and the mundane so I can feel something. I am going to chat people up in a grocery store, even though I'm scared that they're going to think I'm a creep. They're going to think I'm a weirdo, which you know what? You've got to break through that. That's your own insecurity talking. Choose to love yourself, at least today. At least today. And I promise you, Zerki Show, it's going to change the way you perceive the world and it's going to make you realize that all of this hatred that we have,

what is this for? Well, I mean, we need it, right? We need contrast. So it's probably for something. You can't just say, oh, free spirit, I'm the, I don't hate anyone. You know, we all hate things. We all are, like, indifferent to things. We all have emotions.

It's human. But what does it mean to choose being loyal to yourself? What does it mean to love yourself? We aren't cooked, man. We aren't cooked. If you're trying something new, just know that I believe in you Zerki's show. I'm sending you a lot of love from beautiful Cripple Creek, Colorado where I'm at right now. Life's moving fast.

I'm trying to move faster. Yeah, man. Man, I'm very happy. I want to add more of a personal flair to the show. I don't just see it as these beautiful videos, which I really do love making and I love talking. But I want to share more of who I am. I think that I've been pretty scared to really, really put myself out there. And maybe some people are going to like that.

And you know what? If some people don't, so what? I'm sure there are people that will. That are. That will. Anyway, Zerkey Show. Hope you're having a great day. And as always, I'm sending you all lots of love.

And peace. Thank you.