{"id":6802,"date":"2025-06-02T02:51:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T01:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/?p=6802"},"modified":"2025-06-02T02:51:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T01:51:22","slug":"circulo-o-espiral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/2025\/06\/02\/circulo-o-espiral\/","title":{"rendered":"Circle, or spiral?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, when I was having a chat about life with a friend of mine, he complained about \"being back at the same spot\" where he was over a year ago, just as if, instead of moving forward, he had gone round a circle just to end up in the same place. Does this ring a bell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For, as the old saying goes, man is the only animal that trips over the same stone twice<\/strong><\/em>. And when we say twice, we could say three, or ten, or twenty... Sometimes there are stones we keep on tripping over for our whole lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, what if we took the opportunity to learn from each of those trip-ups?<\/strong> What if, instead of feeling sorry for ourselves or cursing the stone, we observed what happens around us (and more importantly, inside of us) every time it reappears? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day we get to master this skill, we will discover that, in reality the path is not a circle, but a spiral:<\/strong> with each lap we get to go deeper and become a little bit wiser, and even though the same old challenges will reappear once in a while, they will not be exactly the same anymore, because we will have acquired new resources and tools to tackle them differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo of a decorative paper spiral, which looks very much like a circle when it\u00b4s folded, but once you stretch it, you can clearly see that it\u00b4s not)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you get the idea? I think this poem by Portia Nelson also illustrates it really well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u00a0Autobiography in five chapters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter One<\/strong>
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter Two<\/strong>
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter Three<\/strong>
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter Four<\/strong>
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter Five<\/strong>
I walk down another street.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Circle, or spiral? Your choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El otro d\u00eda, hablando con un amigo sobre cosas de la vida, \u00e9l se lamentaba de \u00abvolver a encontrarse en el mismo sitio\u00bb en el que estaba hace m\u00e1s de un a\u00f1o, como si, en lugar de avanzar, le hubiera dado la vuelta a un c\u00edrculo para volver a acabar en el mismo punto. \u00bfTe … Continue reading Circle, or spiral?<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3116429,"featured_media":6801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"BinaryWords - \u00bfC\u00edrculo, o espiral? \/ Circle, or spiral?","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Vueltas y vueltas... \/ Round and round...","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4990,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiracion-inspiration","category-general","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DPtR-1LI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9688,"url":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/2026\/09\/14\/ventanas-al-mundo\/","url_meta":{"origin":6802,"position":0},"title":"Windows to the world","author":"binarybea","date":"14\/09\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Esta semana o\u00ed un comentario en la radio que me pareci\u00f3 curioso: dec\u00edan algo as\u00ed como que muchos j\u00f3venes de hoy en d\u00eda consideran que se puede saber m\u00e1s de c\u00f3mo es realmente una persona por los libros que posee que por su perfil en redes sociales. \u00bfT\u00fa qu\u00e9 opinas?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/category\/diario-journal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_20260822_195817-e1789341732906.jpg?fit=1200%2C756&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_20260822_195817-e1789341732906.jpg?fit=1200%2C756&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_20260822_195817-e1789341732906.jpg?fit=1200%2C756&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_20260822_195817-e1789341732906.jpg?fit=1200%2C756&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_20260822_195817-e1789341732906.jpg?fit=1200%2C756&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9635,"url":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/2026\/08\/31\/reto-de-30-dias\/","url_meta":{"origin":6802,"position":1},"title":"30-day challenge","author":"binarybea","date":"31\/08\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00bfQu\u00e9 opinas de los retos de 30 d\u00edas? \u00bfAlguna vez has hecho alguno? Ahora que est\u00e1 a punto de empezar septiembre, es un muy buen momento para plante\u00e1rselo (y me acabo de dar cuenta de que hace dos a\u00f1os escrib\u00ed pr\u00e1cticamente lo mismo, cuando me propuse el reto de 30\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Herramientas"","block_context":{"text":"Herramientas","link":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/category\/herramientas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_20260830_084440.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_20260830_084440.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_20260830_084440.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_20260830_084440.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_20260830_084440.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/binarywords.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_20250602_001412-e1748820097360.jpg?fit=4000%2C3000&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3116429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6802"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6820,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802\/revisions\/6820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/binarywords.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}