In 2004, a Finnish-American photographer named Arno Minkkinen gave the commencement speech at the New England School of Photography.

In the speech, he offered a powerful thought experiment:

Imagine for a moment that you find yourself at the large bus station in the center of Helsinki.

There are two dozen platforms at the station, each with several different bus lines departing from them bound for a wide array of destinations outside the city.

Each of the different bus lines departing from a given platform follows the same route for a few miles to get out of the city.

Minkkinen likened this experience to the early years of a career:

You pick your platform, which sets your general direction, and then select a bus line to hop on from the platform.

He continues, applying the experience directly to the life of a photographer:

“Each bus stop represents one year in the life of a photographer…So you have been working for three years…You take those three years of work to the [museum] and the curator asks if you are familiar with the [very similar work of another artist]…Shocked, you realize that what you have been doing for three years others have already done…So you hop off the bus, grab a cab—because life is short—and head straight back to the bus station looking for another [bus].”

A few years later, the same thing happens again.

You become discouraged that work you’re doing is far from original, so you get off the bus and head back to the station to find a new one.

One that will finally bring you that prized originality you seek.

But this pattern of behavior overlooks an important reality:

The bus lines, which follow identical routes for the first few stops, eventually diverge.

“They begin to separate, each number heading off to its own unique destination. Bus 33 suddenly goes north. Bus 19 southwest. For a time maybe 21 and 71 dovetail one another, but soon they split off as well.”

Minkkinen concludes that there is one answer to all of this:

“Stay on the bus. Stay on the f*cking bus.”

The Helsinki Bus Station Theory says that the only way to achieve true originality in your work and life is to stay on the bus long enough to allow your unique path to unfold.

While originally shared as a mantra for creatives, I find myself applying this concept to every area of life.

Your whole life, you’re told to chase originality. To carve your own path. To be different. In your career, relationships, pursuits, and everything in between. This uniqueness is lauded. It’s what you admire in those that you look up to. It’s what you celebrate in those you read books about.

But the pathway to that originality is not what it seems.

You don’t wake up singular. Originality is earned through long, uncomfortable periods of seemingly unoriginal work.

Consider two identical pots of room temperature water. One is placed on the counter, the other on top of a hot stove. For a few minutes, the water in the two pots looks the same. There’s no visible state change. Then, suddenly, one is boiling over, while the other remains the same.

We know the water on the stove was experiencing a steady change despite the fact that its visible appearance remained the same right up until it reached its boiling point.

But that change was impossible to see. They both look entirely unoriginal. The work and energy were compounding invisibly, simply by existing. Simply by staying the course.

Simply by staying on the bus.

And now that the originality and difference is obvious, it’s hard to imagine the two ever being the same.

You are much the same. The daily work does not manifest in visible originality right away. It may take months, years, or even decades, but somewhere far enough down the line, just like the buses in Helsinki or the two pots of water, the divergence occurs.

Viktor Frankl once wrote, “[Happiness] cannot be pursued, it must ensue.”

Perhaps the same applies to originality.

Originality cannot be pursued, it must ensue.

Maybe originality is merely a byproduct of your willingness to sit with the discomfort of feeling unoriginal.

Maybe your tolerance for unoriginality is precisely what sows the seeds of your eventual originality.

This is an empowering idea, one that has provided me real peace in times of stress when I’ve felt lost or stuck.

Because it’s a reminder that you are on your own timeline. There are no points of comparison when you run your own race. You don’t have to jump ship to start some new blindingly amazing company right now. You don’t have to bet on yourself this instant.

You may find that the opening of your eventual diverging path comes from where you least suspect it. You may find that opening is being revealed in the most boring, unoriginal of ways.

This isn’t a case for blind persistence. Far from it. Staying on the bus isn’t about gritting your teeth down a line that isn’t for you. It’s about recognizing that the feelings of sameness are normal and not to be feared. That the boring, derivative work is where the beautiful, singular work begins.

The thing to check is not how unoriginal the ride feels, but whether the platform you chose is sending your bus somewhere you actually want to arrive.

Focus on direction, not speed. Choose the platform that sends buses in the general direction of the life you want, but worry less about the specific line being the “right” one. Really, there’s no such thing.

The line is yours to shape, but only if you’re still on it.

So, stay on the bus. Stay on the f*cking bus.