is that as good as it gets?not at all. we have a lot more control over the "good" moments in our life than we think. and why do we feel to live certain eras of our lives as if that is the "best" time we'll ever get.a lot of my favorite memories are the ones I was the most present for, not the ones I was told were in "the best years of my life". sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaaaaaaace!https://stan.store/thezurkieshow
Chapter 1: Is high school really the best time of your life?
Is high school really the best it gets? Is that when you have your best years of your life, where you feel like you've done the most adventuring, you've lived experiences for the first time? A lot of people say it's college. College is really where you become an adult, where you experience life for what it is. But a lot of us have gone to college and realized that it's college.
Chapter 2: What does it mean to peak in life?
That's really what it is. It's college. Maybe it's being an adult. It's actually moving to a new city, not knowing anybody, starting from scratch, getting a girlfriend on Hinge. Good luck. And then living the life, going to your job that you worked so hard to get. Okay, well, a lot of us are doing that right now, and I don't know. Every moment that passes... It makes you question, was that peak?
Was that peak? Was that the best it gets? Does it just go downhill from here? I was having an interesting conversation with one of my roommates and he expressed the idea that he thinks he peaked in high school. Which that was like my biggest fear growing up. I'm like, I do not want to peak in high school. High school was a whole lot of schmidd. At least that's what I thought.
Chapter 3: Can you have multiple peaks in your life?
And then I went to college and I was like, man, I wish I wouldn't peak in college. And the answer was in the follow-up question. I asked my roommate, do you really think that you peaked in high school from age 14 to 18? Those are the best years of your life. And he said, no. I think that you have different peaks in your life.
You have moments where you have an experience, true bliss, where everything is just epic. It's awesome. And he feels that there were a bunch of moments in high school where he, you know, he looks back and he asks himself, was that peak? And it was. It was awesome. But he also looks back and realizes that that can be the same for college.
It can be the same for adulthood, for your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, your sixties, and on and on and on. Right? I think what I've learned is that peaking, peaking is, is a, is an action. It's something that we'll all experience. We will have moments in our life where things are just awesome.
And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have everything going right for you, but maybe you experience a moment of bliss. Something that's peak in my mind is this burned in memory of waking up in the morning in high school at 5 a.m. because I was going to water polo practice. And I would go to water polo practice early in the morning. I did not want to be there.
I would slam a protein shake before I got in the water, which is crazy. And I would proceed to swim, you know, in our pool. And I remember... I got to see the sunrise consistently for like a couple of months because we had these morning practices and they were mandatory. You can skip them.
And it was beautiful because my high school had these giant windows and the sun would peak perfectly through these windows. There were like three or four of them and it would just, it would cast this golden light onto the pool. When I look back, bro, Was that peak? Yeah, it was. It was just beautiful. And it was everything that surrounded that moment.
I liked the idea that I was up super early as a kid. I liked the idea that I was with all of my really good friends. Like I joined water polo because all of my really close friends at the time were playing water polo. And I joined it as like a junior, bro. I was like low-key high school unc level. And I was just like, whatever, I'm going to try a new sport. So happy I did it.
I was staunchly a soccer player, but I'm so happy that I took the risk and I just tried something new. I was like, whatever, let's try water polo. Let's see what happens. It's interesting that I look at that moment and that feeling in the same way that I look at... The... The lunchroom table that I had with a couple of my friends from high school.
Some of them which have, rest in peace, passed away. That's something people don't tell you. Man... Enjoy it. Enjoy it, dude. Because life is life. And life is unexpected. And things happen in life that we can't account for. Because if we could, I mean, it would be mid. There would be no peaks. And you need a lot of, you need peaks in your life
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Chapter 4: How to create your own peak moments?
And they're like, what is a train? I'd be like, what? Crazy. But it's the small stuff, too. A lot of us maybe feel like we need to leave our situation with our parents, right? We don't want to live with our parents. We feel annoyed. We feel like, oh, my gosh, this is ridiculous. And when you move out, it's great. It's a great feeling to be on your own. Oh, my goodness. No dinner time.
No, you know... I need to use the bathroom get out you know you can have your own space it's it's it's chill but slowly as you grow older like you you don't see your parents as often for some of us that's peak because we don't want to see our parents but for for some of us that you know have good relationships with our folks it's dude it's it's crushing it is you know
I look back at my childhood and I realize that there were... Was that peak? Yeah. In terms of spending time with my parents, it was. My relationship with my parents became stronger when I left my home. I moved out. But... The simple joy of walking downstairs on a Saturday and seeing my dad on the couch in his pantofla, his slippers. Polish people know what the heck I'm talking about, bro.
Watching Barcelona play Getafe or something. And I would plop, sit down on the couch next to him, and we would just watch La Liga in the morning or afternoon. And then see my mom, you know, with her headphones in, making some kind of soup or something for the week. Talk to her, troll around a little bit. It was really special. And my schlaug, man. My dog, just seeing him walk around, sneezing.
Because dogs just sneeze. That's what they do. There was something special to that. And I don't get to experience that now. It's a different kind of relationship I have now with my home or where I live. Now I have roommates. And I'm grateful to have really good roommates, but it's a different feeling. It really is. And I look back at that and I think, dude, Was that peak?
In terms of that moment in time, it was. And sometimes we won't realize that something was good or was peak until we have lived enough life to realize what that moment meant. I even think of some really dark moments in my adolescence where I got in a fight with one of my close friends or I decided that I was going to ghost somebody and then they IRL confronted me oh man Zerk what were you on bro
Those experiences, those first times are... Dude, they're insane. Just the emotions that you feel... and the way in which you experience them, I mean, that's peak. And it's funny because there's certain things that I still feel and there are certain experiences like going up to somebody new, right, and introducing yourself and being like, what up, you know, that you still feel anxious about.
But it's like a different kind of anxiousness. It's like I've played these games before, anxiousness. And there is something really beautiful to the first time. Okay? The first time of doing things. Oh, God. The first time in general. First championship game you play at a club sport. The first date you go on in middle school. The first... First time you realize that you want more.
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Chapter 5: Why are peaks and valleys important in life?
That you want to leave. That... There's a whole world. There's a whole world. The first time I went on a college campus, I realized I was like, I want to go. I want to go. This is cool. Yeah. Yeah. Experience builds your appreciation for those good moments.
And I don't know what changed, but I think that there was a moment where I was in college and I was slowly realizing there's no more concrete plan after this.
it's the end goal is get a job and there's a couple other things right like oh good to find someone that is dope and marry them and have kids and like the traditional outlook on life and I think I kind of had this this realization I'm like dude I I've been stressing so much about
grinding and being in college and oh my gosh I need to network max I need to do all these things in business school so I can get this job and then I'm good and it's like what you'll really appreciate looking back will be the moments that you were the most present for Yes, hard work pays off. Yes, working hard is important so you can set yourself up for the future. Absolutely.
But if you do too much of that, you risk not having peaks, bro. You risk not having moments to look back on with joy. And maybe you don't have any right now. Maybe you look back at your past and think that everything was trash and bad and maybe it was. Maybe it was. But moving forward, you have a lot more wiggle room. You have a lot more space to build these kind of things for yourself.
And it comes down to what would be peak? Peak. What would be peak? Like... What would you... What would... What could you do... This year... This month... That if you looked back on it... In three years... Four years... Five years... You would have been like... Was that peak? That was peak, bro. That was cool. And... A lot of people will jump to doing a crazy road trip and traveling the world.
That's cool. That's great. That takes money. That takes money. Let's say you're in your broke era, right? Okay, what could be something that would take less resources? I think meeting a cool friend. Doing some kind of volunteer work. Finding somebody... Who knows a craft, a profession, a skill. Learning from them on some like Padawan vibes, right? Like find a master Yoda of plumbing or something.
I don't know, dude. But being able to have them pass down knowledge to you. It's immensely valuable. And you would probably look back and experience so many things with that kind of person and be like, yo, that was peak. I don't know. I don't... I don't think... I don't think I experience too many peaks anymore. I think that the peaks... The peaks now come in presence.
Like I think that... I have been able to be more present... In my life. When I started actually... Following my intuition and doing... Doing things that felt like... They had importance to me. Because it felt like I was moving the needle forward. I was doing something that had some kind of momentum behind it. I just... I was hungry. I wanted to eat my work. Digest my work. And continue to do it.
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Chapter 6: How does perspective affect our experiences?
And I think... That what is a peak thing for you will not be a peak thing for another person. And it doesn't have to be. Never had to be. Maybe a peak thing for you is like traveling...
to California so you've never been there you're like I've always wanted to go to California and I just I never had anyone who wanted to go none of my friends are that adventurous maybe a peak thing for you is an achievement it's like I want to get into law school and I want to get into one of the best law schools and All of those things take work for sure, right? Going to California isn't cheap.
You got to save up some money. Maybe you got to work as a broista at Dutch Bros and make golden eagles all day. Maybe you have to be a server at Chili's and give me my $60 tap. What the Sigma, dude? Or maybe you have to study like a dork. like a dog to pass your pre-law class. Those things all take hard work, like regardless, right?
But being present in that struggle, being present in that climb towards something so important to you, that's peak, bro. That's peak. I look... at my college years and I think of the days and the nights I spent at the library editing videos meeting up with my friends at a coffee shop like both of us working on our own projects filming things doing like cinematography random gigs and
I was going towards something. I wanted to get better at something. And I don't know. It was all... Was it peak? It was peak. Because all of it was fun. It was work, but it was so fun. I think of when I helped start a Polish club at the University of Georgia. And it's like, I didn't even know that Polish people existed. And I got everyone together in one coffee shop.
And we all, you know, a friend of mine had a Polish friend. I invited them. There was another person that knew polish I invited them and we just we mobbed a coffee shop and spoke polish for five hours dude It was so incredibly awesome, and I was trying to to build that kind of community I kid you not for probably two years When you decide
To be intentional about being present, looking at your circumstances, understanding what you have, what tools you have, who you are as a person, what can you provide to other people, what can other people provide to you, what can you do? What are your skills? What are you good at? What are you not good at? What can you learn?
When you decide to just consciously interact with the environment around you and not judge it, You realize how beautiful this life is. And how it works in really mysterious ways. But I think still a lot of us are blinded. Blinded by the light. I hope that's the lyric. We're blinded because we are distracted. There's a lot of distraction.
And so we... We basically base our own peaks off the peaks of what people tell us is peak. The amount of people that I've talked to that are like, yeah, bro, college was like the best. It's kind of alarming. It's like, dude, what are you doing right now? It's really not any better now? It doesn't have to be you. It doesn't have to be you. Not at all. It's a decision. It's a decision you make.
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Chapter 7: What memories do we cherish from our past?
It takes a little bit of effort to admit to somebody, hey, I've always been interested In music, I don't know how to play any instruments, but maybe we can work together. You can teach me something and I can learn. It's the effort. When you put effort into your own life, you will look back and realize that was peak. You will realize that. You will ask yourself, man, was college peak? Maybe.
But what I'm doing right now is so great. It's so good. I'm taking the reins over my own life. Like I'm doing the things that feel genuine. But it's difficult. Because inevitably... You can have this mindset. You can have this idea that it can be better and everything around you in your environment can try to be beating you down and it happens all of the time.
You can be in a friend group where mentally everybody has peaked in high school, in college, in early adulthood. It happens. But guess what? It's your decision to stay. Because there are people in this world that are doing really incredible things, really cool things.
And maybe what it takes is a little bit of distance, a little bit of separation, a little bit of time to double down on the things that excite you. Because I just want you to be in a position where in a couple of years when you look back at 2025 and you ask yourself, was that peak... you answer yes. And not just 2025 having one peak, but many, many peaks.
There are a lot of good things to enjoy in this life. Zerky Show. Did you know that the Zerky Show is everywhere you go? Everywhere you go. That is correct. You can watch, you can scroll, you can stream it. The choice is yours. If you want to tap in, this is the best way to do so. Send it to a homie. Send it to your brodie. If you want to tap in, just tap in. Do the things that bring you joy.
I said it. That is right. I'll say it again. Do the things that bring you joy. If you need somebody to believe in you, I believe in you. And Zerky Show, just try something new. All right? You're not going to know if you like it or not unless you try it, unless you give it a honest chance. Give it your all. And if it's not meant to be, that's okay. Something else is.
Other than that, just know, Zerky Show, as always, I am sending you lots of love and peace.
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