Originality – grown out of the human desire to leave our own unique footprint on the world.
How many different establishments are built on this desire…to create something new or to do something differently than others? As I drove through the city today, I was struck by how many different businesses are simply a consumer venue for originality. Although, like many, I enjoy discovering something unique in the consumer world – I still hope that my originality is more meaningful and deep. It was the next activity of exploring creativity that led me to wonder these things.
How many different establishments are built on this desire…to create something new or to do something differently than others? As I drove through the city today, I was struck by how many different businesses are simply a consumer venue for originality. Although, like many, I enjoy discovering something unique in the consumer world – I still hope that my originality is more meaningful and deep. It was the next activity of exploring creativity that led me to wonder these things.
The goal - to list 100 different uses for an ordinary pencil. The challenge – to continue being original after reaching 30. Feeling at a loss for ideas produced uses like, “writing verbs, writing nouns, writing punctuation” - obviously lacking originality. However, as I continued the exercise I began to create ridiculous (and original) uses. For example, sending a favorite teacher a bouquet of pencils, or using a pencil as temporary arms for broken eyeglasses. I am still working towards my 100 different uses, but I have just passed the 40 Milestone.
Working through this activity made me consider - in what areas do I hope to be original. Then I paused to think; sometimes we put so much effort into achieving originality that we do not stop to reflect that we as individuals are already original. In simply being true to our own unique hearts, we love our own way, we trust our own way, we laugh our own way and we dream our own way. What a blessing! We simply have to learn to be comfortable in our own skin to be original.
Surely our own originality will flow out into the practical areas of careers, as well as written and artistic works. We should always strive to meet goals that challenge our norm– but with the understanding that as unique individuals we are already working with our own original brand.
The truth about originality is that we all leave footprints in the sand of relatively the same size – some are just looked at with greater magnification.
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