YOLO: Love Yourself, Become a Better You

Over the Spring Festival, countless people were moved and set alight by the film YOLO.

YOLO is a film directed by and starring Jia Ling, telling the story of the heroine Du Leying’s journey of self-discovery and growth. Du Leying, a young woman once full of self-doubt and confusion, had always questioned her own worth and rarely fought for the people and things she loved.

After graduating from university and trying office life for a while, she found the tangle of interpersonal relationships too much to handle and chose to quit. From then on she withdrew into her home, living a life cut off from the world.

Her days were filled with endless idleness. Her only “exercise” was each morning, following the movement of the sunlight, shifting from one end of the sofa to the other and then drifting back to sleep.

Then, on a seemingly ordinary day, life took a turn. Her cousin, who worked at a television station, came to visit and made an unexpected proposal: an invitation to take part in a reality show, promising it would be a perfect chance to find her ideal job. From that point on, the trajectory of her life began to change dramatically.

Facing a string of challenges—running away from home, going through a breakup, suffering betrayal, being ridiculed, and even being abandoned by those around her—a bold idea gradually took root in her heart: to enter a boxing match. For her, this was not only a physical challenge but a baptism of the soul.

After a year of unrelenting weight loss and training, she finally stepped into the ring as she had wished, representing her gym in the women’s 56-kilogram division. But the outcome was brutal. Across three rounds she could barely defend herself, beaten by a professional athlete with no chance to strike back. Face covered in blood, Leying fell again and again and got up again and again. “I can fight, I can fight,” she murmured, holding on until the very last second of the match.

In Leying’s eyes, this lost bout was a victory. In the film, Leying lost the match but won at life. No longer trying to please others, Leying began to love herself.

On this, Jia Ling spoke of why she made the film: “I love its ending. I think that in this life you don’t win every time; the ordinary state of life is to lose. But through the whole process, so long as your conscience is clear, so long as you give it everything you have, I think you’ve already won.”

Finding the Feeling of Winning

As the film puts it: “In life, you have to win at least once.” Not many times—once is enough. Give it everything, leave no regret. As for the result, it matters far less. What matters is that striving process, and through it, finding your true self and seeing the longing in your heart.

In this world full of competition, each of us struggles toward all sorts of goals. But the victory that truly matters needs no crowd’s applause, needs no engraving on a medal; what matters is the process—that moment when we resolve, with courage, to give it our all.

The true meaning of victory lies not in the brilliance of the result but in the journey of striving toward it. On this journey we face ourselves, challenge our limits, and endure hardship and failure—yet none of it is in vain.

For it is precisely through this process that we recover our truest self, the self that fears no hardship and presses ever forward. We see the longing deep in our hearts—those dreams and hopes we may once have neglected or forgotten.

And as for the rising generation who live under the glory of an illustrious family—born in a cradle of gold and silver, raised within strict frameworks—it is as if fate has already paved for them a road strewn with roses. Yet on this seemingly flawless road, they often lack a victory of their own—a genuine act of self-proof.

In the vast shadow of the family’s success, they often feel their own worth overlooked, their confidence suppressed. They long to be seen, long to prove their worth through their own effort. But beneath the family’s existing great achievements and glory, such proof becomes especially hard to come by.

What YOLO conveys is precisely this kind of spiritual antidote—there is no need to pursue an unbroken string of victories; you need only find that one, given everything, with no regret left behind. The meaning of this victory far exceeds itself; it is a symbol of personal growth and self-realization.

For the rising generation of high-net-worth families, finding such a victory means breaking free of the framework of the family’s success and building one’s own values and life goals. It not only paves the way for personal growth, but also injects new vitality and diversity into the whole family. A successful family needs not merely to maintain the status quo, but even more the innovation and breakthroughs of a new generation.

Breaking the Cage of the Heart

In this dense and complicated world, deep within each of us it seems there rises an invisible wall, sealing the self off from true freedom. This wall is built of others’ expectations, plastered over with society’s standards, so that without noticing we become prisoners of our own hearts.

A line from The Shawshank Redemption says: “If the heart is a cage, then everywhere is a cage. Freedom is not on the outside, but within.”

To break this cage of the heart, we must bravely face our true selves—accepting our flaws while cherishing our points of light. Every one of us is a unique existence, with our own radiance and our own shadows. When we truly grasp this, we can, within the range of what we are able to do, do well what we can do, rather than blindly chase after some empty phantom of perfection.

The clearer and more reasonable a person’s self-knowledge, the better they can shut out outside interference and hold to what they want to do. The voices of the outside world are often a disturbing storm that can lead us astray and drown us in a whirlpool of self-denial. But once we achieve inner self-consistency, even facing the world’s misunderstanding and challenges, we can hold to an unyielding courage and confidence, and keep moving forward.

The greatest inner drain in life is searching for our own answers in the eyes of others. We cannot control what others think, but we can master our own hearts. Learn to view everything outside with an objective eye, and refuse to let yourself be held hostage by others’ opinions. Hold to yourself, fulfill yourself, and life will go ever more smoothly.

Mo Yan said: In the vast expanse of life, there will always be one or a few auspicious clouds drifting around you. Rather than struggling bitterly among those you dislike or who dislike you, better to stroll happily beneath these few clouds. The joys of this world need not be many—just one is enough, more than enough.

Learning to Love Yourself

As Jia Ling wrote in a Weibo post in early January:

“This film is not about weight loss, and it’s barely even about boxing. It is a film about how a kind-hearted person finds herself and learns to love herself.”

In YOLO, after successfully losing weight, Du Leying asks her father a question: if you had two apples, one big and one small, which would you give a friend? Her father says, I’d give the big one. Leying smiles and says the old her would have given both away, so the other person assumed she didn’t like apples; now, she goes by how she feels. The unspoken meaning: she might give both, or give neither.

And the real Jia Ling views the question this way—she would give, and she might well give both, but it would be her own choice, and she would fully express her own wishes, no longer doing it for anyone else.

To love yourself is not only a matter of self-acceptance and understanding, but an awakening of the soul, a profound insight into life.

Learning to love yourself is smiling at yourself in the mirror on a star-filled night. It is, in hardship and setback, giving yourself a gentle embrace and telling yourself: “Whenever it may be, I am with you.” It is a profound self-discovery, finding, in an endless exploration of self, that true self—the self freed from outside judgment, the self defined by neither success nor failure.

To love yourself means that every morning you can look at the self in the mirror and say: “You are good; you need no one else’s approval to define yourself.” It is an inner strength that lets us stand firm when we meet challenges, because we know that the strongest support comes from deep within.

And for every member of a family, learning to love yourself is not only personal growth but a profound understanding and continuation of family tradition. For loving yourself is not selfishness or self-indulgence, but a deep self-knowledge and self-respect, a deep reverence and cherishing of life.

It asks us to find our own place within the family’s glory—not to bear it passively, but to create actively. While honoring tradition, we must also bravely pursue our own dreams and worth, letting our lives bloom with a unique radiance in the long river of the family.

To love yourself also means finding a balance between the family’s expectations and the self. This is not a winner-take-all contest, but a gentle dialogue. We learn to listen to our inner voice, to understand our own needs and longings, while also respecting the family’s history and culture. In this process, we discover not only our own strength and potential, but also add a new chapter to the family’s story.

Learning to love yourself is a profound journey of self-discovery. It lets us grow under the family’s shelter while teaching us how to be independent and self-reliant. This love is inclusive, a wellspring of strength; it is the deepest love for the family, the bridge that binds personal dreams tightly to the family’s future.

You Only Live Once

The English title of 热辣滚烫 is YOLO—You Only Live Once. It tells you: cherish the present, live vividly, live for yourself.

A line in YOLO says: “You only live once. So it’s fine to be laughed at, it’s fine to want to cry, and it’s more than fine to fail! Because you only live once.”

We are so often used to judging ourselves by worldly standards—what we should do, what we shouldn’t—and we overlook that success has no standard answer. Everyone wants a different life, and so, naturally, everyone chooses differently.

Every life is a unique performance—no rehearsal, no second take. In the river of time, each of us is a passerby, but on this brief journey we have the chance to weave a story of incomparable brilliance.

You only live once—meaning every moment brims with infinite possibility. It urges us to cherish time and bravely pursue the dreams that make the heart race. Don’t choose the safe shelter for fear of failure; don’t let society’s frameworks confine your true longing. For when the journey of life comes to its end and we look back, we will not regret what we tried, only what we never tried.

You only live once—so let love and passion guide your direction. In love, we find the bridge that joins soul to soul; in passion, we discover the sparks that light up life. Whether a heartfelt embrace or a blood-stirring adventure, each is an indispensable chapter of life. Let us, in love and passion, reveal ourselves fearlessly and express our feelings bravely, for in this one life we have but a single chance to experience them.

You only live once—it is also the highest hymn to self-exploration. It encourages us to go deep within and seek that truest self. In this process we may meet challenges, and we may feel lost, but it is precisely these experiences that shape the one-of-a-kind us. Through self-exploration, we learn to understand and accept ourselves, learn to speak with our own voice and walk with our own steps.

Yu Hua said: “In this world no road repeats itself, and no life can be substituted for another. Every person is living a life that belongs to them alone.”

Let us seize each day and fill life with meaning and joy. Whether bathing in the first light of a peaceful dawn or making a wish beneath the stars, let this one life become a splendid adventure, a moving song. After all, we have but one chance—let this journey be as beautiful and brilliant as it can be.