Don't Try to Be Original. Like Love Songs, Make Old Ideas New

09 Nov 2026 #misc

Creativity isn’t only coming up with fresh, brand-new ideas.

Mark Manson wrote in 5 boring ways to become more creative:

One of the most common criticisms of my books is that I didn’t “come up” with most of the advice I give.

Well… of course I didn’t! You really think I’m going to compete with Aristotle and The Buddha? This advice has been around for thousands of years. I simply repackaged it in interesting and novel ways, changed the emphasis on a few points, and added a couple of my own ideas to spice things up.

That made me think of love songs.

All love songs are:

• “I love you and can’t wait to be with you”
• “I love you, but there’s someone or something between us”
• “I’m with someone else, but the one I truly love is you”

You could probably come up with more categories.

Just because all love songs fall into one of those, it doesn’t make you put your AirPods down and say, “Oh I already hear that.”
And we’ve been writing and listening to love songs since we have human experience.

Creativity is repackaging old ideas in new ways.
It’s playing with fixed structures.
It’s stealing some multiple sources.
It’s filtering old ideas throught our lenses and stories.

All ideas inside 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life And Could Change Yours Too are old.
I put my fingerprints on them by sharing them from my experience. That makes them unique.

Don’t try to be original. Repackage something old instead.