Metaphors We Live By – Life is a Game

Metaphors represent an important approach to constructing one's abstract thinking as well as a way of structuring individual experiences in life. Lakoff and Johnson (159) indicated that the conceptual nature of metaphors makes them a central foundation for understanding realities in different contexts. In other words, how people view the world, the way they think, and their conduct are metaphorical. An important metaphor, primarily characterized by a cognitive structure, is "Life is a Game." Specifically, the metaphor goes beyond the level of poetic expression, depicting a psychological model that shapes life failures, a person's success, and their activities. A practical application of creative metaphors allows people to gain additional knowledge of their encounters, giving new meaning to their lives (Lakoff and Johnson 139). Conceiving "Life is a Game" shapes how people function every day by emphasizing a well-formulated foundation for decision-making, executing a specific strategy, and facing competition, while highlighting and obscuring certain aspects of life's reality.

Life is a Game as a Cognitive Metaphor

People who use "Life is a Game" as a metaphor consider it a structural framework that relates life to a structured system similar to that of a game. Researcher Yu (1467) explained that Lakoff and Johnson acknowledged that metaphors are not a way for people to deviate from language but rather a cognitive tool that aids in visualizing the world. When one sees life as a game, they focus on the structured system it takes to play games, ranging from goals and players to rules. It serves as a guide that shows people how to view their lives and what they must do to win the game. The cognitive metaphor constitutes a wide range of entailments that relate to the concepts used by Lakoff and Johnson.

An entailment of the metaphor is that life is a process of pursuing goals and winning. In almost every game, goals are a primary determinant of who wins and who loses. For example, in soccer, the team that scores more goals in 90 minutes, plus any additional time, wins the game. Similarly, a person interprets their life as a game by setting specific goals, which impact their life in various ways. For example, an individual focusing on a goal, such as buying a house, must follow certain procedures to achieve it, including working to earn the money they need or building their credit rating for a loan. According to Lakoff and Johnson (160), people's social and physical actions are based on what they consider the truth. For an individual to achieve their goal of owning a house, they must accept the reality of working toward that goal, just as a winning soccer team works toward its goals by playing better.

Life requires rules and boundaries, which is an entailment of the "Life is a Game" metaphor that shows the requirements a person must follow to win. Games like basketball and rugby require players and teams to adhere to specific guidelines; failure to do so results in a loss or disciplinary action. Such an entailment of the metaphor helps a person connect to their experiences in life, creating a guidance avenue for the future, according to Lakoff and Johnson (140). From a societal standpoint, a person seeking to buy a house must remain consistent with certain aspects of society to achieve it. Accepting that life is characterized by rules and boundaries demonstrates the importance of moral foundations and laws that ensure people play the game fairly. For example, an individual committing fraud to buy a house breaks the rules because societal laws prohibit fraud and might lead to failure to accomplish the goal.

Life requires tactics because it is full of competitors, which is an entailment that defines the metaphor. All games involve winners and losers between competing teams and, in most instances, the best team wins. When describing the use of metaphors in life, Yu (1469) claimed that people apply their life experiences to frame and gain knowledge of abstract concepts. More specifically, metaphors act as figures of thought. The metaphor "Life is a Game" suggests that a person whose goal is to buy a house faces different types of opponents, including common life challenges such as a lack of financial capacity, competitors who can afford the house immediately, and colleagues who want their job position. To deal with these competitors, one must adopt a game-based approach and employ strategy and tactics. For instance, in a chess game, it is important to plan several moves, prioritizing long-term victory over short-term gains. Thus, one must recognize how tactics help defeat opponents in the game of life.

What the Metaphor Highlights

Using the metaphor "Life is a Game" requires people to comprehend the importance of specificity and meaning. As Lakoff and Johnson (141) explained, a metaphor underlines particular attributes while concealing others. By treating life as a game, the metaphor conveys the essence of proactivity and ambition. Winning games requires teams to focus on processes that help them achieve their goals, including developing a strategy and embracing risk. As an illustration, a person who wants to buy a house must take risks of investing for more income, as well as taking a loan that might negatively affect their life. The metaphor also highlights resilience as a feature of the game of life. Researchers Lakoff and Johnson (141) also noted that describing the different elements of activity helps structure experiences that are not highlighted within a conventional conceptual framework. The resilience feature, therefore, emphasizes the need to see failure, like losing a match, as a cornerstone of success rather than a failure that is here to stay. The metaphor also conveys information about performance, illustrating how competence is important by demonstrating skills and tactics for winning the game of life by overpowering all forms of competition.

What It Hides

An aspect hidden by the "Life is a Game" metaphor is cooperation, a central element of life. Metaphors are widely considered appropriate because they justify inferences and sanction actions, aiding goal-setting (Lakoff and Johnson 142). However, when they suppress some aspects, their use becomes problematic. For example, framing cooperation in life as a game can diminish one's desire to be altruistic, empathetic, or cooperative, a characteristic of competitive games. People who approach life as a game are always ready to compete with others, which might force them to utilize unfair tactics as long as they win. It also conceals subjective meaning by making life a process of winning and losing. The theory of subjectivism explains how sensibilities, aesthetics, and feelings shape a person's state of life (Yu 1468). For instance, the metaphor assumes that the winner is always happy and the loser is always unhappy. Such a hidden aspect fails to recognize that success in life is subjective. Moreover, the metaphor also hides the fact that, unlike games, life does not have universal rules that guide people's play equally. It ignores loopholes, such as money laundering, that people can use to achieve a goal, such as buying a house.

“Life is a Game,” as a metaphor, shapes people's thinking as they draw on psychological foundations to decide what to do in life, such as how to pursue success and cope with failure. As a cognitive metaphor, it is consistent with the ideas of Lakoff and Johnson, such as entailments, which are relationships and components associated with a particular experience. It mirrors crucial attributes of a game, ranging from goals and winning to rules, competitors, and tactics. The metaphor brings out characteristics of the game of life, such as performance, resilience, and ambition. Nevertheless, it conceals significant details such as the absence of universal limits, the importance of subjective meaning, and the significance of cooperation, thereby narrowing the way an individual views life. The metaphor goes beyond mere decoration and affects how an individual conducts themselves in life and how they deal with challenges.