O que significa catch-22 ou catch-22 situation?

How many times you find yourself struggling to find the right word to best describe a certain tricky situation in your life? Truth is, sometimes there's no such word in the language and you have to find different words to put it in a way so people can understand you. For example, sometimes we get ourselves in situations where one thing must happen in order to cause another thing to happen, but because the first thing does not happen the second thing can't happen. Did you know there's a specific word that can perfectly describe that kind of thing? Keep reading and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Many people graduate from college thinking that will be it for them to finally get a bit of a kick start in life. The problem is that we all know that's not always how things work in the market place. There's a vicious circle that always pulls the rug from under people's feet. That is, in order to get a job you need experience, but to acquire experience you need to get a job in the first place. That's what in English we call a catch-22 situation, or simply a catch-22. When you're in a catch-22 situation like that, you're not really taking control of things. It's the rules or conditions that create such a situation and make a victim out of you. Do you want another example? Read on!

You really want to start your own business to make more money, but then you realize you need to have money to make more money. You can say you're caught in a catch-22 situation too. In formal language, we can call that a paradoxical situation because you can't escape the contradictory rules. That's it for today guys. Take care!