I’ve been wanting to recommend Yu Quan’s long-awaited new album. Over the weekend, I watched an episode of A Date With Luyu featuring the duo. The program looked back on many moving moments from their journey together, and also touched on how they see their work and life today.

What stayed with me most was the explanation behind the album’s title, @ Myself.

Why call the album @ Myself?

When asked why they used the familiar “@” symbol from microblog culture, Haiquan explained it in a very direct way: people today are all incredibly busy—busier than before, under more pressure, facing more competition, and constantly wanting things others have already obtained. From that comes a great deal of worry and unhappiness. We may @ hundreds of people, watching what they say, what happens to them, whether their lives look exciting, efficient, or full of gossip. But in all that attention directed outward, one thing often gets left behind: concern for ourselves.

That, he said, is the theme of the album—learning to care for yourself.

Yufan said something just as striking. After so many years, he still feels the same excitement and drive one has at the start of a new venture. He enjoys that feeling, and still sees himself as if he were standing at the beginning of a runway, needing to work even harder. For someone already widely seen as successful, that kind of hunger and momentum is genuinely admirable.

Being true to yourself matters more than meeting expectations

Around the same time, I also watched an episode of Behind the Headlines with Wen Tao built around a simple but important idea: being true to yourself matters more than living up to what others expect of you.

Dou Wentao put it plainly: don’t accept the labels other people stick on you. It doesn’t matter whether those labels sound flattering or critical—you still have to be yourself.

That hits close to home. These days, people often seem used to living in other people’s worlds. Depending on who they are with, they slip into different roles. They get used to looking side to side, judging others by standards they would never apply to themselves, making comments, spreading opinions, talking in front of someone and then talking again behind their back, turning everything into noise and confusion.

But how often do people stop and ask what they actually want? Whether they are still holding on to their original dream? Whether, quietly, they have lowered the standards they once had for themselves?

Too much talking, not enough doing

That imbalance feels like a defining feature of modern life: endless commentary, very little action.

What we need instead is more observation and less judgment. Look carefully, decide clearly, and then do the work seriously and steadily.

Friends sometimes run into me and, out of goodwill, ask why I don’t look for a more stable job at a big company. Others ask why I don’t go start something of my own. Some are even more blunt—though perhaps still well-meaning—and say that what I’m doing now doesn’t look anything like entrepreneurship, or that the company I’m with could never really succeed.

But as the old saying goes: You are not the fish; how do you know what makes the fish happy?

I find it hard to judge other people in that way, and I don’t think those labels matter much anyway.

I like the work I’m doing now, and I like the team I’m with. In this team, I feel a strong sense of mission and the energy of building something from the ground up. What I’m doing now is my own form of entrepreneurship—practical, grounded, and carried out where I am. I know what I’m working toward. Effort brings returns in the end, and what really matters is not the label others put on me or on the company I work for, but whether I am honestly doing the work I believe in.

If that way of thinking resonates with you, then perhaps we can build something meaningful together. And if it doesn’t, then wishing each other well is enough.