What is a catch 22 and what are some real life examples?
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A catch-22 is any situation where rules prevent you from escaping that situation.
A real-life example (albeit an imperfect one) would be finding a job. Most jobs ask for candidates with work experience. If you don’t have a job, you don’t have work experience. This paradoxically keeps you from getting a job, because getting a job requires experience. See how “needing job experience to get a job” leaves you in an impossible loop?
It’s derived from a book of the same name. The “Catch-22” in the book is aimed at military pilots. The general idea is that a pilot can be grounded if they’re insane. However, if you ask to be grounded, you’re *not* insane, because flying dangerous missions is insane. If you decide to fly the missions, you are insane though. There’s no way out, because you can’t ask to stop flying, because you cease to be insane the second you do.
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