Sacrificing "The Self" For Originality

When I was in high-school I had a literature teacher that knew how to make us not cheat at tests and stimulate us also to be true with the class and to ourselves. She always promised to us "the originality point", no exception, that we would get for not cheating and stealing someone else work, even with our won words, and the ones respecting "this deal" were always rewarded. I remember this because literature was my favorite and the only one class where I would have high grades with no stress to learn something I didn't like.

When it comes to originality for Steem it is also a must and a criteria that might bring some points to ones wallet, similar to the ones my teacher offered us, but being original means also being yourself? In some cases that might be the case, but the situation doesn't apply to all of us. I, myself, have sacrificed myself for originality a few times and I am not proud of it. Even though I haven't stole anybody's work not all my posts reflect myself. Some of them are even far from "my portfolio" of feelings, thoughts and passions, but I did these also. Why?

Because it was the trend and "it was successful". Even if everybody was writing with "his own words" lots of us were circling around the same topics. Whether it was about how to be successful on Steem, about Bitcoin, or what can we do to make Steem better there were tons of "originals" on the same shit. I even remember one user, at the beginning of "my life" on Steem, asking his followers about what would they like to read about in his posts and I suggested him to give them "circus", as that was what I felt like proper to get upvotes at that time. The man was not a bad blogger or a newbie, but it simply run out of votes and interaction on his posts an that started to stress him out.

Looking back at what he did I realize that he wrote too much about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and he did that especially when they were falling down the uphill they were in January. Bitcoin is definitely a topic and it will be for years to come, but when you only write about Bitcoin, and tens others do it also, you become just a background for others posts and you might end up only with the auto votes you earned "back in the days" when being successful on Steem wasn't that hard. Sometimes "the new" attracts the new.

Don't get me wrong, the guy was original, but too original on a topic that some more others "were original" also. As I mentioned above, this kind of originality trapped me also by writing "with my own words" on topics that I didn't really love or took my breath away when talking about.

Being yourself, on the other hand, won't get you in the situation to ask your followers for topics because being yourself never ends. Well, it ends when you die, but until then there are tons of Steem pages to fill with... why not "yourself" and your own things. Someday it might be about Bitcoin or the hyped news around it, but in the other it might be about the bugger on your nose that your boss noticed and laughed about. I don't mind reading about "buggers laugh" from time to time instead of reading the same lines and "Steem college degrees papers" that I see very often around Steem.

I appreciate proper documented posts and "serious topics", but man, sometimes I want to laugh about something funny and genuine or enjoy your vacation with you on the Steem blog. That's I think being yourself will outpace being original on Steem. Definitely originality is a thing, but when 10 people talk about dogs the highest audience will have the one talking about his own. People love subjectivity and small talks although not all of them admit that so don't be afraid to be yourself. Votes, comments and flags will come either way. You can't please everyone, but there's always someone smiling back if you wear the proper smile.

Thanks for your attention,
Ace