the zurkie show - why I choose to be alone

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

do you think I'm better off alone?it depends.but alone time is a needed to see where you stand in your life.sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaaace!https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

I love being alone, and I'll never apologize for it. And if somebody wants to look at me and say, bro, you need to spend your 20s, being surrounded by people, doing stuff all the time, I will look him in the face and smile and say, that's your opinion. Every time I have decided to go and do something because I wanted to, and it meant being alone, I came out being so freaking happy. I am scared a little bit to go back home because I feel like I have spoiled myself with what it's like to make decisions for myself. I went on three walks during my time here in South Padre Island in beautiful sunny Texas

where I didn't take my phone deliberately. I didn't want it. And it wasn't because I was like, I'm not living with my phone. You know, one of those like, yeah, I don't have social media. I have social media. I doomscroll. I love it.

It's the best invention in human history, but having to rely on your own survival instinct and the kindness of strangers and just, like being fully immersed into the place that you're on vacation at taught me more about myself than any motivational video, any conversation I had with a friend that was just saying you need to lock in, you need to work harder. And I think it was a reminder that I don't take my own. alone time seriously. It's only when I'm forced and I'm out of my environment that I decide, all right, like, I'm already a little uncomfortable being on vacation, screw it. Like, I will talk to that stranger. But when I'm in my own home base, I'm comfortable, man, I'm way too comfortable.

I have met a 73-year-old grandmother while I was watching the Super Bowl at a Peruvian restaurant insane sentence. And the next insane sentence is her grandson works at a restaurant that is directly below where one of my great friends lives in Austin. And immediately, from this random conversation, we became friends. And yesterday we went go-karting. Oh, and we also went on the Ferris wheel. Oh, and she also told me her entire life story of being a bartender and what it was like to be in seven marriages. That's something I won't get at home.

That's not something I'll get at home right now. Because I'm not interacting with my environment with curiosity. And I'm not interacting with myself with a growth mindset. I'm just going through the motions. I've also learned that like rest is different for everyone. I see like all the time people rave about, oh, it's so nice to lay on the beach and do nothing. It is nice. Trust me, I did my fair share of that.

But it's also nice walking with no plan, no time you need to be home. It's also nice stumbling into an art gallery just because it looks cool. It's also nice picking up a conversation with two strangers from Minneapolis and you talk about Prince and Peasley Park just because it comes up. Those things are nice. And I acknowledge it's a luxury, right? not a lot of us have the ability to just pick up and go on vacation whenever we want to. But I'm taking my privilege while I can, man.

Oh, my goodness. It feels good to make a decision for myself too. And I think I need to do more of it. It's weird when you spend, you know, a couple of months going through life, waking up, having your bowl of cereal with almond milk, sitting down on the couch, eating. at mindlessly watching something on the TV. Then your friends hit you up.

You want to go to this movie tonight? Sure, I'll go to that movie. Oh, you know, I got to do my work, but I don't have enough time to go to that coffee shop or that park that I really wanted to. I don't have enough time to call my grandparents. It's all like your priorities. They're all in the place of other people.

They're not in your own lane. Big ballers. Stay in your own lane. on lamello you know remember he shot like that oh my goodness I used to watch ball is life religiously before I would go to sleep and I was like so into

Chino Hills high school all that stuff made her day oh my gosh when like a new ball is life video I had the notifications on I was that tapped in I'm not even a hooper I don't even watch basketball like that but there was something about the the lore of

California basketball culture that I was just so attracted to when I go home I'm going to make more decisions for myself and I'm not going to think whoa what if I you know miss out on my friend's workout schedule what if I miss out on this project they're working on and I want to be a part of it I don't care I need me

and not in a narcissistic way I just I need this because if I don't have it I don't feel like myself If I don't make a trip that is entirely mine that's not coerced by bad actors, my friends, not bad actors, but like by other people. Dude, let's go to, you know, Sarasota. I don't want to go to Sarasota. Bro, just go. Just come with us.

It's good to have those trips, but it's also good to have your own little space. Yeah, man, I'm just, I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful. I think I become very rigid. I become so freaking rigid, man. In my own routine, in my own, like, routine. It's like kind of a disservice to even call it that. It is not a routine.

It is just bumming around. Dude, like, come on. I don't have a routine. I do not have a resemblance of excitement, I think, in my day-to-day life. The way that I've had it here, on vacation. I'm like excited to get out of bed every morning because I don't know what kind of crazy person I'm going to meet in like a fishing t-shirt. What kind of conversation I'm going to get into? It really excites me. And I think we all have to find our version of that. And sometimes

it means going away from our friends and having our own little pocket of whatever we do. I'm just done following whatever my friends want. I'm done. Maybe that was the thing I needed to learn. You know, some people, they go on a trip and they're like, I found Nirvana, I found my own thing. I think I follow other people with the big life decisions. And I don't even listen to myself.

I don't even think, well, hold on. Wait a minute. What do I want? What do I want? Do I want to live on my own? Well, I should be, my friends having, you know, he's inviting me and he says, bro, I got a spot. All four of us can live.

But what if I don't want to? Same thing. Like, maybe there's somebody convincing you right now to move home or convincing you to do something you don't want to. Man, don't listen. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids.

and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. In communities across Canada,

hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields, like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. I also think I just take myself too seriously. And I chain myself to like a basement in my mind. and I'll, you know, go down the stairs, and I'll be like, how you doing, bro?

And my entire being is like, dude, you have me chained up in here. This sucks. I want to be alone. I want to be in the world alone without feeling guilty. I want to be interacting with strangers and hearing stories and just, I don't know, putzing around. Who cares? part of me is a little insecure to like say these things out loud because I feel like they're pretty known this is not new knowledge but in a world where the value of other people is like

exponentially more valuable than your own opinion which is crazy it's kind of nice it's kind of nice to reclaim it. I think it's actually a former rebellion. You ever meet somebody that's like so themselves, it kind of intimidates you. It makes you think, damn. Like, I don't even think I'm exploring myself, okay? Stay with me. The way I should. They don't care. Like, they don't care. They're doing things that make them grow. And it doesn't matter if it's going to make their image look weird. They don't care. They're going to do it. They don't care. They're going to do. it. Gotta do more of that. Gotta do more of that.

What else have I learned not being on my phone, the awakening? Bro, I have learned that I love music. I love music so much. I love hearing music at stores, passively

listening to it, and bumping into music at different points of the day. Being on the beach, hearing somebody with a speaker, hearing someone through their headphones as you're on, you know, in the pool and they're listening kind of a little bit loud because they're a little bit older and probably have terrible hearing. They're playing some music. I've really enjoyed that experience. It's made me want to

buy more music and collect music and be, have a more emotional relationship to music. I find that I also just build more emotional relationships to the days that I've spent. I can probably tell you distinctly every single day that I've experienced here on South Padre versus everything back home blends together. It's like it's put into a ninja, you know, you got to like, then it starts spinning and you ever have it when you're using the ninja or like any blender, like the, the bottom will just like start spinning and it's all, it's too frozen. So you have to like go in there and like mush it and and and mix it up. I fell back in love with smoothies.

I was making a lot of smoothies on my trip here. I took care of myself. That's a big one. I don't do that. Grown-ass man, I don't take care of myself. I don't give myself the freedom to, like, make mistakes, go and, I don't know, watch something until I fall asleep, care for myself to go brush my teeth, I will, like, put myself on the hamster wheel. This is the first time that I genuinely was like, hey, I want to take myself on a walk.

This will be good for me. You know, I want to go to that restaurant alone and eat at it because it's tasty and it was great. Awesome. I don't. Just gnaw. Why not? It's because taking care of yourself is kind of, it kind of goes to the wayside a little bit.

I feel like when you live life as an adult and have the pressures of like bills and stuff, you think, oh, no, I got, it almost becomes like this survival. And I think part of it is, at least for me, like the small things like taking care of yourself are not glamorous. And I thought that I needed my life to be not domestic. And it enabled really bad habits, like staying up late. I really don't like it. Oh, I've been better about it because there was a stretch of time, man.

I'm going to bed at 3, 4 a.m. It's not a good feeling. I really, I really do not like it. 1.30 a.m. is kind of like become my new midnight where it's like, all right, that's the line. Anything past that, buddy, what are we doing? What are we doing? And I've been a lot more lenient and appreciative of sleep. When you do stuff for yourself and you take care of yourself, you'd be

become more grateful. I'm so grateful. I look at my body. I look at me. When I make myself some salmon, that's a little bit rubbery. And I eat it and I'm like, I made that. You know, it's not perfect. Hey, but it's tasty. It feels good. It feels good. I just, there's a different flow to it when you actually start taking care of yourself and the opinion of others doesn't sway you and when you actually rest and this is i know that this is kind of a touchy subject i've found what does it mean to rest in a world like to you know now uh you can't rest you need to be doing stuff all the time bro like it's hard to to get any rest uh but i think the biggest form of the biggest form of self-respect is knowing when to

put everything away and go and hang out. Especially now. Dude, I mean, don't feel guilty for that. Stay educated on news, on this world. Oh, my goodness. I don't know what it's going to be like, guys. But I do know that if you do not prioritize a little bit of space for yourself, you will run yourself into the ground.

I did, and I just, I had to, I had to. And it's not that I'm disconnected from the problems, but it gives me a little bit of energy of power to just take a nice arm to it all. When you take a break from the phone, it also makes you realize how entrenched it is and everything. It's entrenched in everything. Dude, any free time people get, any moment of alone time people get, it's immediate.

And it doesn't discriminate. All genders, all nationalities, all creeds, all age groups. Old people too. But what's interesting and what I think old people have on us, especially boomers, Gen X, they still they still know how to build relationships rather rather naturally

there's no need of like hey come to our we're trying to build this community of young people and we're doing dinner parties and stuff and although you know I've seen like ads for this stuff and I appreciate it don't get me wrong it's a great step in the right direction

there's something manufactured about it that just makes me go it's not real It's not real. I'm sorry. Ah, I hate to say it. It's not real. It's not real.

You would not bump into any of these people on the street and say what's up. Maybe you would, though. I don't know. It's kind of like a weird dilemma I've been having, but I don't know if I'm a fan of it. Or maybe I'm, I don't know. I've been having this weird, like, dilemma about that. Are we, like, hingeifying or tinderifying, making friends? with building like dinner party pages or building like these events,

which is basically like soft core networking is what it is. I feel like still the best friendships you're going to meet is by it's random. It's being in a place at the right time completely separate to anything else. You bump into somebody at like a Home Depot. They happen to have like a t-shirt of your favorite band or a team that you like. and you talk. Today is the day of the America versus Chivas game. And I go to a store, I bump into a guy that has a Chivas jersey.

And I'm like, dude, that's crazy that you got a Chivas jersey. Like, you must hate America. And he's like, I can't stand America. They suck, bro. Today is the rivalry game. I'm like, no way. They're playing America today. He's like, yeah, man.

And like, it's big, bro. I can't wait. Like, it's going to be a great game. I'm like, dude, that's awesome. I get my little hat for my girlfriend. And then I go to the other store. The dude is wearing an America jersey, and I'm like, bro, no way. I just saw a guy that had a Chivas jersey on, and he says, that's my brother.

What do you mean that's your brother? He's my brother if you saw him at the other store. I was at the other store. Bro, oh my goodness, that is insane. That kind of context, I think, builds more flowers. to a relationship bush to bloom. It's like just going to a thing that somebody's throwing as like a, oh, this is a get-together for a community.

You're going there to transactionally make friends. Or am I hating? If you think I'm hating, please disagree with me. I just think it's transactional. You're trying to make friends, and it's not in, in the intention of, oh, let's see if we vibe or if we don't vibe. It's, I don't have any friends. I'm going here and I'm trying to make as many friends as possible, or I'm trying to meet as many people as possible. It makes friendship into a networking

game, and I think friendship is way more convoluted than that. It's, it's not perfect. You bump into people over and over, and then you're like, okay, I've seen you the fourth time. We've got to become friends. That's what we're missing, right? And part of it is because I don't think we make ourselves available to that. It's harder, especially if you're working all the time, to have an excuse to go somewhere where you would be seen you'd bump into other people 100%. And the incentive of becoming like a regular somewhere is kind of like you're going to spend $20 every weekend getting a macho latte at a local coffee shop.

Like, I don't blame you for not wanting to do that either. I don't know. but I've just been seeing that a lot, and it's been rubbing me the wrong way, and I can't put my finger on it. Friendship is magic, they say. Bro, man, do me a favor if you ever have the chance this year. Go anywhere. Go anywhere. Go alone. Small town, big city doesn't matter. Go alone. Go with the intention of hanging out with yourself, but strike up conversations, ask people what is there to do around here.

and do not expect anything out of your interactions with strangers. Don't be like, we're going to hang out, we're going to be best friends. Oh, my goodness. That's another thing. It's so easy to get hyped up and huff this copium when you meet somebody. And it's like, they're the same person as you. Oh, my gosh, I just met my best friend. It's not that easy.

Friendships take upkeep. They take, like, contact, right? You got to be in somebody's life. That is not an easy thing. And you might commit to somebody and be like, bro, like, I don't know. Right? I've stopped having expectations from the different people that I meet. And I just take the interaction for what it's worth.

If it is meant to blossom into something, I always extend like an invitation to that. You have an invite to my party, right, on Xbox Live. It's up to you if you join it or not. It's still going to be there. But I understand if you want to go and, I don't know, play World of Warfare or something, right? No, modern warfare. What am I saying? World of Warf.

World of Warcraft, I think, is what I was trying to. Anyways, that shows. I did not play Xbox. I did not play first-person shooters at all, bro. I was so bad at them. And I, like, did not. I just never gravitated towards it. I was more of like a Minecraft, GTA kid.

Anywho, be alone. Be alone. build a day around your interests build a day around like what you want to do and if you don't know what you want to do then just walk somewhere if you see something you see a seashell in a display case

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Save the everyday with Amazon. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. or that and enjoy via rail love the way this is a big thing we always like want to have the best experiences with everything i know this has been a huge thing for me like whenever i travel somewhere or even like

like in austin i'll be like what are the best food or coffee shops what are the what's the best the best because my time is so valuable listen there is a beauty to eating a terrible meal so that you can enjoy the good ones. Bourdain said something along those lines. I love that. I love that analogy. You have to have the bad experiences to enjoy the good. And so many of us are afraid to have the bad to go into a thrift store and be like, this is so terrible. There's nothing here for me. Like, wow. Dude, I went into a thrift store today. And there were like 20 Catalina Crunch Corteroy hats. And I was like, out loud, man, somebody must have really. loved Catalina Crunch. Silence. Silence. And I was like, oh my God. And it was full of people.

Everyone looked at me and just was like, that's not, ooh, that's not, you know that girl that impersonates all like the Gen Z? Dude, it was literally like a, that's not. Oh, God. That's funny. And I was like, I'm going to leave. I still tried. to like shop in the thrift store there was nothing bro and i i was at this display case for like a 10 minutes and the lady just like looked at me went right back to the register and i was like you don't want my business why bother i'm getting the getting the sigma out of here who cares anyways bro today's really pretty it's uh cloudy so you can really look at the sun and see it during sunset this is the the spot that i'm at by the way check it out

what those folks behind me right there they were chopping it up with me a second ago there there was like a group of people on the beach they're gone now but there was a group of them that tossed a dude in the ocean it's like a spring break group next week is i think the beginning of spring break for some people i mean march is usually the time so i'm just i'm just missing it And I kind of did that on purpose. I ain't going to lie to you. Because it's not that I don't like being around people my age. I love it.

Trust me. I just knew that if I was around more old people, I would get more wild conversations because they don't shut up. So not saying that I wouldn't with anyone my age. Like, trust me. I'm excited to go back to Austin and be around 20-year-olds. All right, let's move on from that. Jeez.

Bruh, take a trip. No, that's like take a trip somewhere. Bro, spend more time alone. Spend more time alone. You do not need to be around people all the time. You can have so much fun if you are by yourself. You just need to trust that it will be fun. And you have to do things that you know you're going to like.

If you like to play golf, go play golf alone. And join up to people. Join other people's lobby. if you see people are you know another person's eating alone go up and sit down and eat with them I used to do that all the time at the dining halls people thought that was crazy because I would just go up to people and be like yo you know you're sitting at this round table for four people and you're on your phone maybe I could sit down and talk to you and sometimes they would talk to me other times they'd be in their AirPods like dug into whatever they were watching on YouTube I don't judge that's

cool man do your thing but yeah it's nice to interact with the world. The world is the best. This is the best TV show. It's the best series. It's the best short form. Trust me. But it's hard to access now.

And I think it's hard on purpose. Because once you live in the world a little bit, you interact with people and you build community. It makes you realize, dang, I don't really need to spend all my attention online. and I don't think that's what billion-dollar companies want us to think. I don't know. Conspiracy Zerk. Oh, Zirky Show, I hope you're doing freaking well, man.

Frigin dope. Heck yeah. Today's episode of The Zirky Show was filmed in South Padre Island. I will forever have a place in my heart for South Padre. Even if I live on the most beautiful beach in the world, I will come back to South Padre. because it has a certain thing that I'm not sure I experienced anything, anything, anywhere else.

Thank you for hosting me. Thank you for having me. I can't recommend this place enough. 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. The best way to tap in is the Zirky Show everywhere, all across the globe. Do the things that bring you joy. sit down on the beach, hang out, listen to some NBA young boy if you need to. Hey,

I know I gotta get in my young boy mood on the six hour drive back. I feel like I'm Gucci Man in 2006. Come on! If you're trying something, do you just know that I believe in you and as always,

Zirky Show, I'm sending you lots of love. And, peace!