the zurkie show - you don’t believe good things are for you

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

recognize your suffering.recognize your complacency.recognize your worth.sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaaace!https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

I really wish I knew sooner I didn't have to suffer through life. It wasn't something that I deserved. That's how I had internalized it my entire existence, is that I deserve to be going through bad things, because bad things just seem to happen to me. What I want to offer you if you feel this way is a couple words and a couple things to think about. What if it's actually your fault?

You see a lot of these like self-improvement videos that talk about You need to take accountability. Everything is your fault. You are a loser. But what if it's true? Not the loser part. But what if a lot of the suffering that you've experienced, even though it is so real in your mind and you are convinced that that is the only thing you will go through your entire existence is just people using you, you experiencing the worst, seeing the worst of other people. And there is no silver lining in all of this. You feel broke. You are broke. You feel like just everything you wanted to do in your life, there was always something in front of you that told you, no, you don't deserve this, goodbye.

Or what if that's how you're framing it? Zerk, I've had a bad day. Why would you tell me that? It's not true. No, it's not true. I have a terrible life that nobody else can fix. That's actually true. you do have a life that no one else other than you can fix

but I fear that you don't actually want to fix it I fear you don't you don't want to accept what it's going to take for you to make a change and to realize that it was your fault not the things that happened to you not the way that you were misused and treated and made into a victim.

But it's your fault the way in which you understood the situations, felt about them, and how you treated yourself. That is your fault. Now, it does not mean that you are cooked and that you are worthless and that you are terrible. Because if you can admit that, and we can admit that, because honestly, it is my fault the fact that I took scenarios and played them out to the end to the brink of existence like you know in Minecraft where like the world stops generating and there's just like a fall off like that is that is the point in which I made myself the victim of my life and I had everything I didn't have much to complain about but still in my mind I I didn't do things sooner and that meant my time was my time passed

I didn't focus on being consistent. I told people I had these dreams and aspirations, and I just didn't do it. I didn't work hard enough in soccer, in school. I made those decisions, and those are decisions I can't change. I dated the people I dated. I did the things I did. I cannot take those actions back. But what I can do now is recognize that I built my own sorrow and my own

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Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail, love the way. I was addicted to suffering. And not in the right kind. Not for gain. not for, ooh, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to better myself.

I was addicted to feeling bad about myself because that's all I knew. And there is a good chance. That's all you know. Because I don't know if our parents really teach us. Some of us are really, really blessed to have folks out there and friends that tell us, hey, like, keep your head up. It's all good. You made a mistake.

You have things to be proud of. but I'm not going to lie. For me, it was difficult. It was difficult. I still thought that even if I did good, it wasn't good enough. It will never be good enough. And I am just making excuses for myself to make myself feel better. But in reality, that wasn't the case.

I had a lot of things to be proud of. I had a lot of things to be appreciative of. But instead, I was just like, whatever. And that's one of the problems. you downplay the good things in your life you downplay them and instead of looking and acknowledging some of the the good things you instead like to beat them down into submission and be like shut up yeah i have a car but it's not the car that i want yeah i even having a car yeah i have friends but they're all mid oh yeah yeah i mean like i have a girlfriend but she sucks like you are not grateful

And I had a lot of people sympathize with me and tell me it's okay. I get it. I understand why you're frustrated, why you're sad. Like, it's okay. I'm going to give you some tough love. If you don't change the mindset, your life will stay the same. Even if somebody waved a magic wand and told you, oh, my goodness, here you go. You got the dream house.

You got everything you want. It won't change. You will have all those things. and still find ways to have issues about it because it comes down from the soul. It comes down from the self-worth. That's something that you have to build. And it isn't free. You have to spend time on it, a lot of time on it.

But if you don't start with acknowledging that the suffering and the way in which you're suffering is kind of you have something at play and you don't take accountability for it, you are going to stay in this pit. I promise you that. Because the minute that you take accountability, a lot of us think that it means acknowledging that our lives suck and that it's like we're worthless and we've cooked ourselves. But actually it frees you.

It really does. Because what it makes you realize is that you have gotten yourself here. You can get yourself out. You might not see the way in which how you can do. get there because it's hard. It's like, okay, if you're in debt, if you feel like, dude, I really fumbled the love of my life. Or like, oh, I was surrounded by losers throughout high school and college. I was just around losers. And I wanted to do something cool for myself. I wanted to be able to travel to, you know, work for like an organization that sends teachers

to third world countries and helps us educate people in English and other other languages or just helps us build infrastructure, whatever it is, right? If you feel like you have missed out on these opportunities and you haven't had these things, there's going to be a part of you that will revolt the change. You taking accountability and starting to act a little bit differently. I'm like, all right, like, I got to pick up my own stuff. I got to figure out like, all right, you know, this is my situation. And yes, I can complain about it.

Like, I'm not saying, don't complain, bro. Like, it's chill, you know, as I have my glasses on and I'm chilling in Florida, right? No, but the one constant you will have in your life is that you will have problems. And things will go awry. They will explode and change in ways that you have no control over. And the more that you allow your emotions and you allow yourself to be dictated by things out of your control, the less stability and control you will build over your own life, and you will be at the peril of other people, your entire existence.

Now, if you're comfortable with that, and that's how you've lived your life your whole time up until this point, stay the same. You don't need to take my advice. It's not for you, right? But if you don't like that thought and you think that would suck, that'd be a terrible life to live, spoiler alert, it is, then you have to do something different.

you have to you have to stop beating yourself up all the time why do you do that what good does it bring you i know it feels good i a lot of us are like i don't know why i do this no it feels good that's why you're doing it you're used to it it it feels like you're home hello daddy's home right you throw the throw your throw your hat up and and you put your your coat on the coat hanger and you beat yourself up that's what you do because it gives you comfort that's why i did it what who said that that's why i did it It would give me comfort. There was less comfort in me acknowledging, you know what, I worked hard. And you know what?

I deserve this. I deserve working hard every day. I deserve showing up every day. And I'm going to take my wins. I'm going to accept my wins. But I'm also going to also recognize that there are things I need to improve on. That's okay. So much focus on how overbearing, you know, change in your life is.

and so little focus on what can I do tomorrow? What can I do right now? I'm sitting in my bedroom and it's dirty and there's clothes everywhere and there's dishes from a couple nights ago. That's something you can control. That's something you can clean up. That's something you can change. But rarely are we willing to look at those things

and take accountability. And I don't mean that you need to take, you know, Jock and David Goggins level accountability over everything and plan out every second of your life. That's not what I'm saying, but the accountability over your suffering, it needs to strengthen. If you want me to be honest,

people are exploiting it now. Your loneliness, your lack of self-worth, your lack of dignity, your lack of feeling like you matter, all of that is being exploited. I promise you. And you see it in the world that we live in.

You don't have to interact with anybody if you want to do something, if you want to eat yourself, eat your feelings, right? Like, if I feel really bad about myself, I can just order something to my door and never talk to a human being ever again. Versus if you took accountability for that suffering, and you're like, dude, I really feel terrible.

I want to binge it. I want to fall into old habits. I want to watch adult material that I know that it will make me feel bad. If that's a problem you have, some people don't have that problem, right? But I'm just keeping it a buck. then you have to face the uncomfortable truth of change, which is that it sucks.

It sucks. Change is not fun and jolly. It sucks. But it's worth it. Because the things that suck usually are. And the things that don't immediately scratch that itch of like, ah, I'm so terrible. I should be terrible to myself.

I should do something I know I shouldn't just because. That is easy. The destructive patterns are easy. The suffering because you think you deserve it is easy. What is harder is building self-respect. What is harder is saying no. What is harder is telling yourself, I want to go and eat a butterburger so bad,

but you know what? I made a deal with myself that I'm looking out for myself and I'm going to buy some blueberries. I'm going to buy some strawberries, some frozen bananas. I'm going to make that protein shake. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to come home.

I'm going to cook my little homemade burgers that won't taste as good, but I will be proud of myself. It is the decision to be great for yourself. Zirk, what if I am so entrenched in my entire life? I have been addicted to suffering.

What do I do? I don't know anything else. Ooh! You're speaking. my language. I like it. Como esth. You're cooked, bro. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

It's so funny. Because, in my opinion, you might not see it this way. You're in like the best position ever. How I wish that I could go back in time and realize what I, you know, learned now. And if you're having this kind of discussion with. yourself at age 18, 19, 20, that's really great. That's really great. I'm one, proud of you. Two, you have to start small. It doesn't start by going on a gym arc tomorrow. It's a good idea, but that's not how you're going to address the self-sabotage within your thoughts and the way

in which you view the world and the way in which you view other people. You will have to act as if you have a new lens on and you're trying to figure it out. Simple stuff, negativity. Get it out. Doesn't mean if something sucks, you don't say it sucks, but being negative to be negative and looking at things is like, oh my God, bro, whatever. Like that is poisoning you. Real talk. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's poisoning you, and it's making your ego become inflated. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life.

Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, Start your search at AutoTrader.ca Canada's car marketplace. Stop being negative to people.

Stop being negative to yourself. Oh my goodness. Wow, I can't believe we have a test on Friday. I'm probably going to bomb it. You're already cooking yourself before you even started preparing. Oh, wow. Nobody wants to talk to me probably. I'm such a loser.

Stop. What are you doing? You're feeding yourself lies. They're not based on anything. And maybe you've had past experiences that may be like, Okay, somebody had their AirPods in when you tried talking to them and you felt rejected. You need to collect data and look at yourself as an experiment. Stop judging every single thing that happens in your life and immediately being mislabeling it as negative.

Oh, the small stuff. Somebody got your order wrong when you went to a coffee shop. I'm sorry. You are not the victim in that. It sucks. People make mistakes. Because what you're doing is you're building an evidence bank on how terrible things are. And it's making it's making you change the lens to view everything that way.

And it inhibits you from doing things, from challenging yourself. Because all of the outcomes in your life that you have acknowledged, they're all negative. And I don't even mean like, I don't mean this in some kind of Uber grindset way. This is just going to make your life better. And it doesn't make you oblivious to all the terrible things that are going on and the fact that people are starving right now and there's a lot of uncertainty. And we don't know if we're even going to start families in the future. But if it can make your life better, why wouldn't you do it? Why? Why?

What do you have to lose? I know what you have to lose. Comfort. It's comfortable. Just writing everything off is terrible and thinking you're a terrible person and that nothing is you don't deserve anything. and that your life is cooked and terrible and worthless. That's comfort. And challenging that belief is going to make you retroactively look at all of the decisions that you made in your life,

the way that you poorly treated people, the way in which you sabotaged great things in your life because you thought you deserved the worst and you will realize, I didn't need to do any of that. And I know that's all so uncomfortable and that's what you're afraid of. But again, if it's worth it, if it will help you, if in the moment running the 5K hurts and you can't catch your breath, you look forward to finishing it and learning about yourself, you look forward to the end when you get your metal and your, you know, sponsored T-shirt that has 50 million local businesses on them. That's what matters. Something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus.

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You've learned about the negative in your life, so why not learn about the positive? Why not look at things like, oh, I messed up my order. All right, I'm going to get another order. Or I'm going to tell them. I'm going to speak up for myself. It's a decision. It really is. And yes, there are people that have circumstances that are terrible.

There are people right now that don't know where their next meal is coming from, 100%. They need to focus on other things. And honestly, my words might not hold weight. But in the same vein, I think you know if you are inducing your own suffering. I think you know if you are complaining to yourself about how lonely you are, but you're not making any effort to go out and meet people and start things and be the person that goes up to somebody else because that's what it takes. It's initiative.

People want the results so bad. They want to have this life. They want to do these things. But nobody is willing to be honest with themselves to actually make the change and actually do the small things. And if you want to be more social, sit down in a dining hall in front of someone who is like watching something on their phone and be like, hey, can I eat my lunch with you and have a conversation? Nobody is willing to do that because that is uncomfortable. And in a world designed for you to be comfortable all the time, choose discomfort. Choose discomfort. Choose

discomfort. Choose things that are weird, that are odd, that make you go, ooh, I don't know, oh, this is not something I would usually do, but if I do it, I think I will learn about myself. Choose those things. Living in the box of, oh, no, no, like, no, nobody's going to love me. No, no. Don't even ask. No, I'm not doing that. No questions asked. You really consider yourself open-minded. You really consider yourself somebody that is going after your goals and wanting something out of this life if you're not willing to change. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. No, you're not. Again, I can't tell you how to live your life. But what I can tell you is if it's not working right now and you don't change something, it won't work. It won't work. It won't

because you want the results and the results come from hard work and all of the learning and the fun stuff come from hard work they come from the journey man oh it's the biggest lie that we're told is that you got it the result is what matters no the learning is what matters it's always what it's been and yes the result is a beautiful part of it but if you are not willing to go down the journey if you're not willing to explore more about yourself and challenge the way that you think and the way in which you hold beliefs on the world, bro, it's a long life.

And I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I really wouldn't. So stop suffering. Stop finding reasons to hate yourself and reasons to think that you are so terrible and that you will never find love and that you'll never be liked by anybody and that you know what?

All your life you've only tried to do things and it's never worked. Stop it and get to work. change it, find ways to enjoy the new lens that you have on life, small things, treat people with respect, treat yourself with respect, do things that excite you, the rest will take care of itself.

Zerky Show. Today's episode of The Zirky Show is filmed in the beautiful sunny hot Florida sun in West Palm Beach. You can kind of see in my lenses here, the skyline. It is beautiful. Other than that, Zirky Show, if you want more of the Zirky Show,

it is the Zirky Show everywhere you go. That is correct. Same spelling. We got great communities everywhere, people that are genuine, authentic, and wonderful souls. Let's keep it that way. I appreciate every single one of you that tap into the show daily or once in a while. Thank you so much for being here. Do the things that bring you joy. Remember, try something new. I always say that, that I believe in you and trying something new. You've got to believe in yourself. You just got to give it a shot. And you can do it and quit it. Okay? You don't have to stick through things. But just keep you. Keep trying. That's the most important part, and that is how you learn. Zerky Show, as always, I hope you're doing well, and I am sending you all lots of love and peace. Beautiful. Yay.