the zurkie show - you gave up on yourself again

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

big thank you to Josh Czuba being on the show.find a better story to believe about yourself.sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaace!https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

What changed my life was just hearing somebody talk about how they are struggling with binge eating, how they are struggling with being just a human being now. Because that makes you actually think about your own world. When somebody opens up in a way that it's like, I have nothing to lose, this is just who I am. It makes you want to be who you are. Yeah. There is a freedom in that. there is the the um for me the stuff that i don't want to talk about because it because i'm a little

embarrassed or ashamed of it only holds me hostage when it when i keep it to myself what's one of those things for me it's the uh it's the self-soothing via binge eating via like scrolling or smoking or uh i mean those are really the big ones why do you feel you know why they're so embarrassing is because they're not that cinematic. Like, they're not, like, a cool addiction or something. You know what I mean? Okay. They're so pedestrian

and every day that I just, it makes me feel weak. It makes me feel like I don't have willpower. And, and it gets to a point where my self-talk is like as if they were hard drugs. Really?

Yeah, it's like, that's how much I beat myself up. That's how much weight I give them. kind of hilarious when you think about it like dude it like you've been on your phone for an hour like you can relax or you know you ate like you bawled out at uh at you know waterburger whatever it is but but it does feel that way because that's the that's the threshold like for you that's very impactful for somebody going through like their first heartbreak in middle school yeah that hurts as much as like someone who is going through their first heartbreak in college.

Yeah. I think it's the one of the problems is we try to compare and we try to be like, well, my feelings are not valid because somebody has it worse. But the feelings are still there. They don't leave. It's not like, oh, you know, yeah, have a nice day. Goodbye. Like, yeah, obviously there's people that are suffering way more than you.

So we all like universally have to deal with these things. Yeah. And just because like, yeah, you don't have a cool, a cool addiction, which like, what even is that? Crazy concept. Crazy concept. it doesn't mean that your feelings are any less valid towards them. I feel the same way.

Like, I've struggled with, like, the same three things my entire life. Adult material, if you know, you know. Food. You do a whole episode on that. Yeah, yeah. And, like, what else? And sleep. Three things.

That it's, like, in the scheme of society, I think a lot of us, with that like it's a generational like just you know oh yeah it's it's it's something you talk about at the at the lunch table but a lot more people than you feel like there is when you're in the in the thick of it yeah you think you're you think you're the only one that is just you're not the only one no everyone everyone is dealing we're all out here we're all out here and all of us are not talking about it and it's funny because when I started opening up and like kind of just trolling about these things so like yeah you know it was up till three you know, locking in, you know.

Locking in. The, yeah. The pleasure ain't going to find itself. No, but it is always accessible to us. It is, right there. Yeah. At every moment of our lives. It's awesome.

It's only getting better. It's actually genius. I mean, it's great. They really, they played a fast one on us. They locked in on that. They did. They did not fall off. No.

But like, it was, it was appalling how many people were like, dude, I deal with the exact same thing. Like, I am actively, like, trying to get off. of it. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent WestJet where your story takes off. It's weird man addiction is a weird thing. It's a weird thing that what I found to be helpful is dropping the ego and the ego is like all of the voices about you that are just front and center in your mind all the time. Yeah I'm this I'm that

And you'll notice it's a very similar voice of like I'm locked in or I'm not locked in You know you you're worried about you you got to drop that and Kind of get back in your body a little bit it helps to focus on like someone else or something else And just kind of escape the prison of your own self-talk for a second you know what it feels like in your mind It's like a it's like a news cycle Yeah, yeah yeah it's a news cycle and it's and you have the worst media writing the worst things about you in your mind all the time There's no like, oh, you know, well, Zerke did this good thing today. No, it's all just like terrible, terrible, terrible.

Bad news. Bad news. And it's odd because I feel like when you have that addiction to feeling bad about yourself, it seeps into every part of your life. There's not like a moment where you're like, okay, I'm going to tone it down. the world kind of creates a mirror for you and you just you think that you are the problem and that everything is going down.

This addiction to feeling bad about yourself. This was a realization for me recently. I think part of the reason we keep falling off is because our life doesn't have a meaningful enough story in it for us to attach to. So we become addicted to the cycle of getting back on track.

Wow. You know what I mean? I used to think that my life was meaningless because I didn't struggle enough. Sure. Because the heroes in our lifetimes, they all came from nothing. Yeah. And my nothing were two parents that loved me and gave me all the support financially that I needed and all of the intelligence that I needed. And everything, you know, was there.

Was it, could I call a private jet and go to EDC with the bros? No, that's not, you know. but I would never go hungry. And it's like it felt like I didn't deserve to be a hero in my own life because my life was, I'm playing on peaceful mode when people are playing on survival mode. We are not hardwired for that as humans.

Our nervous systems, everything that we've evolved for has prepared us for challenge. And when we live a life of comfort and ease, there's a deep dissatisfaction within us that we can't sit with. And I think that's part of the reason why intense people or really people in general turn to comfort substances and addictions, is to artificially create a sense of friction that we can escape from.

And then the story we tell ourselves is, oh, I'm broken, or there's something wrong with me, or I have low willpower, and I just need to lock in, I just need to lock in, I just need to lock in, I just need to lock in, I need to get back on track, I need to lock in forever and ever and ever and ever and ever until you fall off. But you need to fall off to make the story work the next time around. So that's part of the cycle. It's like psychologically you need the struggle of falling off

so that then you have something to fix about yourself. I think the solution of this is you just got to pick a more interesting problem. You're hardwired to solve problems. You're hardwired for challenge. You, you probably, if you're an intense person and you keep falling into self-soothing, that's a pretty surefire sign that you are made for more, I think. Okay, okay. Okay.

So, me not being able to run eight miles is not, that's not me falling off. Like, because I don't really feel passionate about it. I feel like I should do it because that's what the intense people around me are doing, and that's like how I want to gain, I guess it's how I want to gain approval. So what do you do? When you don't feel like your story matters, when you feel like there's no point to anything that you're doing,

yeah. How do you have something to not fall off from? Yeah. Because falling off means that, you know, sometimes it means that you were able to fall off in the first place. How do you create a track that no matter what you do wrong, no matter what happens, what chaos ensues, the train keeps going? Because the train is going to have stops. Yes, that's the thing we don't want to accept.

We want this perfect vision, perfect streak. I'm never going to fall off again. The falling off is a product of entropy, chaos, and that's a guarantee that is going to happen. There are things that are going to occur outside of your control. And the really successful people, the people who don't fall off, are those who can navigate that entropy, who can course correct when things go outside the plan. It's figuring out how to work with yourself. Yes, but you're absolutely right, I think, is that we need a big enough or a more interesting enough story that we automatically want to stay on it. Purpose.

You need purpose. We self-suit in a lack of purpose or a lack of story. It's helpful to understand. It's like what would have to be true about your personal life narrative so that you wouldn't want to escape it? But how do you find that? You know, people say that all the time. They say, oh, you just need purpose, bro. How do I find it?

Like, if I'm in college and I'm trying to get a degree and you kind of have an inclination that you might be wanting to do more. Yeah. But there are so many things you can do. You can do anything. You can have all the information at your fingertips. Totally. How do you just pick one thing? Well, we'll let you know when we figure it out because we're in the same battle.

But I think one of the problems here is everyone wants to find their purpose. As if it's this instant gratification thing, because we've been conditioned to instant gratification. You can get what you want right now without any effort or time or patience. Sure. So that's our relationship to finding purpose or narrative. Is purpose a long game thing? It has to be. And it goes back to the brick-by-brick thing.

You know, you build it over time. I don't think it's something you can outsource to a college degree or a job, which a lot. of us do as well, right? It's like if I just had this job or if I just had this perfect job, yeah, if I just did this thing or if I go to go to this school and I get this degree and I prove to my parents, not to myself, that I can do it. Right. Then all of the problems will be solved. Yeah. I did. I did that. You did that. Yeah. It doesn't solve anything. Instant gratification. Right. It's like I want to solve the problem right now. I want this quick fix solution. As opposed to a long game perspective, like a way of living. You know what I mean?

So that's a big one. Still figuring this out, right? Actively. All right. Josh, what if I fell off today? I had a plan. I wanted to do stuff. Yeah.

I wanted to wake up today at 8.30. Yeah. I rolled out of bed at 10. Yeah. I wanted to be on time to meet you for coffee. And I was half an hour late. Yeah. How do I make sure that I won't just like beat myself down into oblivion?

Sure. And make myself think that I am not able. to do anything good in my life. Yeah. Which right now in my mind is true. Well, there's a couple things that you just said there. You listed out some things that happened that occurred in the material universe. And then you listed out some beliefs that you're telling yourself.

And so... Well, all of those things happened. Well, you're... Okay. So you started with, what if I woke up late? What if I was late to an appointment? What if I did... If I took...

Did an action or didn't take an action that I needed to do. That's something that occurred. That's something you can observe. Sure. And then you've got all of these narratives that you're telling yourself, like, oh, I'm broken or I'm, there's something wrong with me or I, those are all internal. Those are all things you're saying to yourself. So the solution here, if you can call it that, has to address both of those things. There's some short-term interventions that you can apply, right? Like if you've fallen off, if you're in a, I call it a dopamine hole, right? If you're, if you're in a consumption spiral, you're turning to self-soothing mechanisms rapidly just to numb yourself for another second. Sure. The short-term intervention is like go outside for a walk, take a shower, have a glass of water, put on some clean clothes, make yourself feel like a human being again. That's short-term. Or if it's like waking up late, it's like the next chance you get, like go to bed early and set an alarm and have something that gets you out of bed. Like you have a plan. You're going to make your bed and then you're going to drink a glass of water and you just mentally know what that looks like. So I have to treat myself like a child? Yes, in the short term.

But here's the thing. This is what most people get wrong. Myself included all the time is we give all of our attention to these external short-term interventions. If I just do this, this, this, this, and this order, then my problem will go away. And we don't address the second part, which was all of that internal self-talk, the narratives you tell yourself about, oh, I fell off or I have no willpower, I have no control over myself. Those are all things you tell yourself. They're stories, and you perpetuate them with action. And the more you feed into them, the more likely you are to fall off again.

and then spiral back into the self-soothing. And you're just a victim of your own narratives. Pause. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks

powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx. new power move. Okay, we caught it. It's a narrative thing. It's like the story that I'm telling myself, that I'm not good enough and that I will continue to fall off and I will continue to fail, even though I'm making plans and trying to do everything other than that. What kind of story do I need to rebuild? Where do I even begin for something like that? Like, is it something that I need to sit in silence

for? Is it something that I need to go and travel, you know, Europe for a year for. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm glad you bring that out. Because I, because it's not that. It's definitely not that. If you're thinking that van life is going to solve your existential crisis,

no. It won't do it. It won't. Wherever you go, there you are. That's, yeah. That's the same. You're going to fall off in Croatia. Yeah.

Oh my. As you're having the, you know, 30 euro burger. Yeah. In Dubrovnik, you're going to fall off. I've had this happen. I've had this happen many times. How so? There was a period of my, a couple of years ago, where I was going to go to Australia for a period of time and basically start a new life.

Like, this was this vision I had. Like, I'm going to go and I'm going to make all these new friends. I didn't really have very many friends at the time. Well, you're going to hang out with kangaroos all day? No, at the Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise. There's true. There are people around the outskirts. Yeah, yeah.

And it's the place to be. And it's beautiful. And I have family there. And I was just really excited to go. And my life at home at the time was in shambles. But I was so convinced that if I could just get out into a new environment, all of those problems would go away. And I found very quickly that was not the case. Every single problem, every single inability to take care of myself or do the necessary things to move myself forward,

all of the negative self-talk I was dealing with at home, came right on the plane with me and off the plane with me and into the apartment that I was staying in. And I was just living the same life, but at the beach. And that was a really dark moment. Really? But everything is perfect. You got what you wanted. I mean, that's how I felt when I, I remember finishing my community college degree and I'm like, yo, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of Illinois and I need to start a new life. And I moved to Athens, Georgia to go to UGA. And then I proceeded to have one of the worst years of my entire life in college. Everything went bad. My mental health was in an all time low. I was begging my parents to drop out of school so I could like figure out what was going on in my brain. Yeah. It's always with you. It's always with you. Now the upside to this is, yes, all of the negative stuff you're trying to get away from, all your bad habits, all the things that make you fall off. Those are always with you. Okay.

Which gives you an opportunity to work with yourself 100% of the time. The opportunity to play the game, the opportunity for upward mobility within your own psyche is ever present. You can always practice. Sure. And that's a great way to live. your life. I mentioned earlier like a way of living. What I found to be helpful is thinking of my life as a constant state of practice. Because effectively, everything that you're doing, you are practicing. Everything you give your attention to, you're practicing. If you're at home engaging in adult media

famously, you're practicing that. You are getting better at that. When you have a conversation with a friend talking about stuff that matters, you're practicing that. And if you're having negative self-talk, If you're having thoughts that are, you know, an inner world that's punishing you for not being dialed enough, for not being consistent. If that's your reality, you have all the more time to practice navigating that voice, reframing the conversation, taking back control of the conversation, right? Trying to coach yourself with just a little bit of empathy. And you stack up enough reps of that, and you become really good at redirecting yourself. Okay, I love the idea of practice, but when is the game? Like when is the moment that I can step into the arena and show my ex that cheated on me, that I'm the goat?

Because I have a calisthenics body and it may or may not be natural. What? But that's what I want. Yeah. Good news, bad news situation there. All right. This is it. This is the game as far as I'm aware.

What? This. This. This right now. And this. And this. And this. And this.

And this. So this is This is the moment Can we just take it in for a second? But it's boring Mm-hmm Yeah, sometimes it's a little boring But it's not like terrible

No Because there is There is a lot Yeah It's actually quite peaceful I don't hate it Neither What I can do right now

Is I can practice Paying attention to the trees and the sound of the passers-by and the flow of the water behind me and it's not hyper-stimulating and I don't feel excited or dopaminergic but I also don't feel like

I'm falling off I'm just here I can do this I can do this it's almost like starting here I can figure out okay what are the other things that can make me feel similarly

because I guess when I make it a little bit easier on myself when I pinpoint like well what is causing me to have these thoughts and spiral down I almost can like build from another vantage point one that's actually more stable

because I feel like a lot of the self-beliefs in my life are built on this this scaffolding that is so fragile and it just takes one little crumble for all of it to come down versus like I could build like a like a Greek

Roman structure that even if they you know if years go by it'll still be there because the base is so strong and it's so powerful maybe we didn't fall off maybe the problem is we keep repeating

the loop the story that always will end with us falling off we need a better story. And for those who don't have one, might be helpful to just do this for a second. Just sit and do nothing and intentionally get bored in the hopes that a story, even a small one, might present itself to you. Can't guarantee that it happens. But it can't hurt your chances.

What do you have to lose except for time? Zirky Show. Today's guest on the Zirky Show is none other than Josh Chuba. He's got some great things that he makes, that he writes, that he talks about. If you liked today's episode, go check him out. At Josh Chuba. Let's go. Peace on Zerkees Show.

This episode of The Zerkees Show was filmed in beautiful sunny, Austin, Texas. If you're in the area, pull on out. Tap in! Tap in! Did you know that the Zirky Show is everywhere you go? That is correct. You can watch it. You can scroll. You can stream it. The choice is yours. If you want to tap in, do this.

you should watch the Zirky Show. Where can I watch it? Tabin. Do the things that bring you joy. If you're trying something new, try it with a friend, ask a question that is kind of uncomfortable. You will be so happy that you did so.

If you're trying something new, like me, just know that I believe in you, Zirky Show. I always do, and I always will. And other than that, I am sending you lots of love and peace. Frozen lasagna. Medium power. 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time.

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