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Six Signs That Your Backward Steps Are Actually Forward Steps
#5. You Start Seeing Your Enemies as Teachers.
Published in
4 min readJan 14, 2025
Sometimes, the universe destroys your world with a meteorite, and you think you must start from scratch, but that’s not true.
The truth is, often, the only way the universe can make you progress is by reducing your comfort zone to ashes.
Ergo, what you think is a step backward may be a step forward.
Here are some signs that this may be happening to you.
- Expansive Plot. This sign is based on a technique I learned in a Brandon Sanderson writing course. 1) You make a promise to the reader in the first act, 2) everything seems to fall apart in the second act, and 3) instead of achieving what was initially promised, the adversity leads the protagonist to achieve something much better. Applied to your life: it’s like the universe promised you a teddy bear, took away your job so you couldn’t buy the damn bear, but then you end up getting a job as a forest ranger in a bear reserve. This technique happens in real life, just like in fiction, because often, our subconscious guides us to something much better than what we initially wanted. So don’t despair if you’re in the second act and everything seems impossible, because your reward in the third act, precisely because you…