Have no fear. No idea is new.
When you create something new, you often discover it already exists. If, by chance, you stumble on an idea that seems original, some well-meaning bystander or friend will eventually share with you that this idea exists too!
But that shouldn’t stop us from creating.
Charles M Stack launched an American online bookstore, Book Stacks Unlimited, in 1992. That was three years before Amazon.com existed! Whether or not Jeff Bezos realized that his idea wasn’t original, he still launched Amazon.
Before Amazon, there was Book Stacks Unlimited. Before that, people went to physical bookstores and libraries. Before that, people listened to oral storytellers. The idea that powered it all? The human thirst of knowledge.
Truth is, even as all-powerful as Amazon seems, there are still new bookstores and libraries, physical or digital created now.
Harry Potter is not new. A young child from a non-magical family attends a magical boarding school? Try The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy. What about a disembodied Dark Lord? Check out Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.
The American government is not new. It was heavily inspired by Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. There were other republics like the Roman Republic, Arwad in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Axum Empire in Africa in the past.
Ideas are not new. Time is.
As time moves forward, different methods become more or less viable (e.g. electric vehicles), society changes their stance on big issues (e.g. homosexuality, gender bias), and the people…we…change too.
That’s why two different creators can take the same idea and come with very different products and execute them very differently.
No idea is new. But that’s ok. Not that you need it, but I give you permission to try creating whatever you want to anyways.