You don’t have to be the first

If you’re a painter and have an idea for a painting should you stop yourself and go check all the paintings that have been produced in the whole world up until that moment because you’re worried that your idea might not be original?

Does the above question alone sound ridiculous to you?

Well, maybe because it is ridiculous.

What about a writer? Should you stop yourself from writing a story when you know that other people also tackled this particular problem/ subject?

You have your unique style, your unique story, your unique experience, your unique sensitivity, your unique perspective, your unique intersection in mind.

Sure, there is a great chance others painted that landscape / wrote similar piece before.

So what?

Should you deny yourself the right and the pleasure of painting / writing it as you see it? Just because there were people before you who had the exact same idea?

Should you first contact all other artists in this world and ask them if they’re not, by chance, having the same thing on thier minds?

There will always be someone who either thinks about the same thing at the time you think about it, or who thought about it earlier.

So what?

Ideas are not yours. Nor are they the next guy’s ideas.

Thus it doesn’t matter if someone else did it before you.