Originality vs authenticity

You are unique. You hear it from the moment you come into the world. There's no one quite like you. You're one of a kind, a unique result of the dance of DNA and environmental conditioning.

We hear the same in the entrepreneurial world and among the communities of digital nomads and those who work from home. You just need to bring your own unique vision into the world. What if you can't find that vision, can't express it or just feel lost as to what it is you are doing?

For a long time a part of me has known that I'm not meant to work crappy minimum wage jobs my entire life. I never went to university, and though I did study a few different things at college level I never found the subject that "fit". I think I truly am meant to create something from scratch, be it a website or business or freelance writing career. I'm slowly coming to grips with this but this whole “unique” thing has been bothering me for a while.

I think I put too high a value on the word “original”. Not in the sense that you shouldn't create your own content rather than plagiarising, because of course you should. But to me, the term original has been sort of warped to mean “completely unlike anything that has ever been created before”. 100% different, 100% new, 100% unique. This is of course a pretty impossible concept in a world where even beautiful original works of art have similarities to art that has come before. I've allowed this idea that I cannot use my voice if I don't have something to say that is totally unlike everything that has ever been said before and I'm pretty sure a lot of people feel this sort of creative block, and allow it to stop them from ever getting started.

How can I bring something unique into the world when it seems as if every inconceivable idea has already been thought of by someone else? I might be one of a kind (as we all are) but it seems as if one of a kind businesses and artists are in short supply. Everything at this point seems like a derivation of everything else.

It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun. So what does that mean? That all us budding entrepreneurs, artists and writers should just give up on it, because there's nothing new we can possibly bring to the mix? No. I think accepting that anything we come up with; be it a product, service or piece of art, will likely be compared to something else. And that as active consumers of art and writing, it's obvious those things will influence so what we come up with will have a little hint of this or a little hint of that, but yet will still be ours. That there's precious little new in the world doesn't mean that we cannot infuse our creations with a little of our own personality and our own flavour.

Sometimes I think people confuse originality with authenticity. When you have read a lot, seen a lot, read so many inspirational stories of other people finding their own way of doing things, it all starts to blur together and I do see a lot of inspirational people that look as if they have modelled everything they have done on what someone else has done. A lot of what is out there feels inauthentic. And to me that is the biggest thing. Finding a way to be truly authentic is hard, especially when you're struggling with self esteem issues and wondering if anyone really wants your authenticity or not. It's so in our nature to model our behaviour off other people when we are growing up, that we can find ourselves to confused about how really to be authentic. But I think it's only in the doing itself that we will truly find our authenticity. When reading the inspirational stories of others or going to seminars or taking business courses or whatever, I think some pretty good advice is “take the parts you like and leave the parts you don't”. This doesn't mean ignore your taxes or assume you can build successful blog that pays you well within a couple of months, but it does mean don't assume that how your story goes is going to be the same as everyone elses.

Whatever it is you're putting off because you don't know if it has been done to death, just do it. Do it with passion and your unique flair and put your whole self into it. What you come up with will be a little like and a little different from everything else out there. Accept that whatever you come up with is unlikely to be 100% unique, as we have so many things available to us these days. The best thing you can do is make sure that it's 100% you and you put your heart, your soul and your spirit into it. Otherwise you are just going to sit around for the rest of your life waiting for some unique idea to hit you and never actually getting the chance to execute it. You need to go out there and let life teach you where it is, instead of expecting it to come to you in a flash.

All content is original, including the photos.