What are the metaphors for your life?

Post 480 - Metaphors are comparisons that show how two things that aren't alike in most ways are similar in one important way. Authors and speakers use them to make their comments more interesting or entertaining. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on us a little bit at a time. Here are some metaphors that have to do with the meaning of life:

- Life is like eating grapefruit. First, you have to break through the skin; then it takes a couple of bites to get used to the taste, and then just as you begin to enjoy it, it squirts in your eye.

- Life is like a banana. You start out green and get soft and mushy with age.

- Life is like cooking. Sometimes you follow the recipe and other times, you make it up as you go along.

- Life is like a jigsaw puzzle but you don't have the picture on the box to know what it's supposed to look like. Sometimes, you're not even sure you have all the pieces.

- Life is like a maze where you're always trying to avoid the exit.

- Life is like riding an elevator. You have lots of ups and downs and someone is always pushing your buttons.

- Life is like a puppy searching for a street full of fire hydrants.

- Life is like a battle. Everything is a competition or a struggle and you're always either winning or losing.

- Life is like a prison. You feel that you don't have any choices and that others have all the power.

- Life is like a classroom where there are always new lessons to learn.

- Life is like a battery. Everything you do drains your energy and you need the weekends to recharge.

Think of your brain as a filing cabinet. In childhood, people open the files and label them. Then they often spend the rest of their lives putting new material in these old files. If they had a good, healthy childhood, they probably have a pretty good filing system. If their early years were a struggle, then they often see things as struggles for the rest of their lives.

I like to think that life is like a journey. I ask what sort of vessel are we traveling in – a car, a ship, or an airplane? And where are we going? We’re on a great journey together, following a path with many twists and curves. Most people around us are on autopilot, but if we can wake up to the reality of things, we have the power to grab the wheel and take control!

What are your metaphors? Try standing back to see the patterns in your life.