THE ORIGINALS CLUB
Why most people copy and how to start sounding like yourself again.
Welcome to Issue #022 of Sojourn. Each week, I share two original essays to help you slow down, reconnect, and rebuild with intention (hence ‘sojourn’), in a private community that uses travel as a path to reinvention.
THE WAKE-UP MOMENT
“Oh, they’re copying me.”
You don’t expect to think it.
But there it is, sitting under a caption that sounds… familiar.
Same rhythm. Same phrasing. Same kind of reflective pause.
It’s not anger you feel.
It’s clarity.
Clarity about how desperate we’ve become for identity fluency.
Clarity about how many people are out here mistaking aesthetic for expression.
They’re not copying you because they’re unoriginal.
They’re copying because they don’t trust their own voice yet.
Because they’ve been taught to optimize, not personalize.
Because vulnerability is scary, and templates feel safer than truth.
But you can feel the difference.
Because you didn’t create your voice from strategy.
You built it from story.
WHY WE MIMIC WHAT WE HAVEN’T CLAIMED
Most people say they want to be original.
But what they really want is a roadmap that guarantees approval.
They want applause without exposure.
Creativity without courage.
So they borrow.
They borrow language, style, strategy, and voice until their work becomes a secondhand echo instead of a first-person expression.
But here’s the thing:
What we copy in others is often what we’ve disowned in ourselves.
We see something that resonates not because it’s trendy,
but because it’s a mirror to a part of us we haven’t given permission to speak.
And that’s where reinvention lives.
Not in sounding like someone new,
but in learning how to sound more like yourself.
MY TURNING POINT
I used to write what I thought people wanted to hear.
Softer, flatter, “inspirational.”
But it didn’t land.
Not because the content was wrong.
Because it didn’t cost me anything.
There was no pulse behind it.
The shift came when I stopped writing to be liked and started writing to be clear.
Clear about my lived experience.
Clear about what I actually believe.
Clear about who I’m here for, and who I’m not.
That’s when the right people found me.
Not because I was louder but because I was truer.
REINVENTION BEGINS ON THE PAGE
We think reinvention starts with a job change, a new city, a new outfit.
But often, it starts here:
→ With the first sentence that actually sounds like you
→ With the first post you don’t edit to death
→ With the first truth you say that no one claps for, but you feel alive saying it
This is the real edge:
Can you write something honest before you write something strategic?
Can you be clear, even if it’s not clever?
Originality is not a look.
It’s a stance.
PROMPTS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
→ What part of your story are you still writing around instead of from?
→ Where are you using someone else’s words to describe your turning point?
→ What’s one sentence that would scare you a little to post but feels like home when you say it?
THE REFRAME
Copying isn’t the enemy.
It’s often the first sign that you’re close to something real,
you just haven’t trusted yourself enough to say it your way.
But here’s your invitation:
Write something that costs you.
Not in likes or performance.
In honesty.
In exposure.
In you.
Because your real voice?
It doesn’t need polish.
It needs permission.
And when you start sounding like yourself,
that’s when reinvention begins.
~ Ana
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