One of the fears a young writer has is not being able to write as well as he or she wants to, the fear of not being able to sound like X or Y, a favorite author. But out of fear, hopefully, is born a young writer’s voice: “But now,” says Kierkegaard,

to strive to become what one already is: who would take the pains to waste his time on such a task, involving the greatest imaginable degree of resignation?...But for this very reason alone it is a very difficult task...precisely because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different.

It is very easy to read those words, and very hard to enact them. Elsewhere Kierkegaard says, “What is education? I should suppose that education was the curriculum one had to run through in order to catch up with oneself.”

Nietzsche admonished, "Become who you are." Kierkagaard wrote, "Be that self which one truly is.'

Kierkagaard and Nietzsche were preoccupied by many of the same problems.  They applied the same tool -- the dialectic -- to solving the problems.  Each reached existentialist conclusions.

Nietzsche was sure God is dead and  that belief in God dilutes and distracts from making meaning and creating value.  His alternative is the Will to Power.

God was very alive for Kierkagaard and he wrote, "Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all."

Each found their particular voice. Each resolved their particular fears.  I much prefer Kierkagaard both as biography and in terms of his intellectual descendants.