We Are All Originals, We Have Just Lost Ourselves Along the Way

I found this quote scribbled on the wall of a washroom in a jazz bar in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Once upon a time, I was traveling through Chiang Mai, a vibrant expat hub in northern Thailand. One of my fondest memories is of my almost daily visits to a jazz bar called The North Gate Jazz Co-op. It was a place where music and people collided, and new friendships blossomed over glasses of Thai Lager. During one of those magical nights, I stumbled upon a quote that would stay with me for the rest of my life, inspiring the following little manifesto:

Originals have learned to resist the lure of the superficial, and act with confidence, reacting justly and tolerantly towards others.

Originals strive for inner freedom: driven by a desire to conquer the numbing resistance within oneself, originals take the time to craft an inner compass as a guide to overcome adversity.

Originals dedicate themselves to discovering their genuine interests and needs—what really satisfies them, what they most cherish—and embrace those values in all their actions. The key to originality is to bring all these values into alignment so that one’s efforts simply flow in a concerted and coordinated succession of actions, feelings and thoughts.

What distinguishes originality from other human aspirations — like intelligence, knowledge, or accomplishments — is that the measure of originality is the impact a life makes on lives around it.