Life places opportunities and obstacles in your path – life is a double-edged sword.

Social media is a double-edged sword that can give you benefits, though; it can cause conflicts, hurt people, and even keep them away. A double-edged sword is not only a situation that can go good or bad. In fact, the taken action has several effects at once in any given situation. It is something like; the result kills two birds with a stone because the two sides of the same blade are sharp, the sword cuts both ways. Let us say it is something that causes both advantages and problems.

Observe the two aspects about living in big cities. Many people move from the countryside to large cities; others decide to move to the countryside instead. Living in big cities is a double-edged sword. They are beautiful cities and offer thousands of opportunities, but it is so expensive, thus, many people cannot afford it. Besides this example, we can find other examples on how to use the expression “a double-edged sword” in different situations. Let us see the following example.

“John is a genius and very famous, but his great intelligence was a real double-edged sword because he struggled to communicate with ordinary people.” (Two different aspects or possible outcomes). John has something that caused him to have both favorable and unfavorable consequences. In addition, John has a company and he fired some top managers to save some money.

These corporate lay-offs were actually a double-edged sword. His company saved money by not having as many salaried people on board, but it had to pay more overtime. John needed to change work contracts. He even took away employees’ vacations time. For employees’ company it was a double-edged sword, even though they are making extra money, they are not having much family and leisure time.