Difficulties Are Impediments to Motion
conceptual-metaphor Embodied Experience → Event Structure
Categories: cognitive-sciencelinguisticsphilosophy
What It Brings
Difficulties are things in the way. A problem is not an abstract state of affairs — it is a rock in the road, a wall across the path, a weight dragging you back. This metaphor is part of Lakoff and Johnson’s Event Structure system, where purposeful activity is understood as motion along a path. If action is motion, then anything that makes action harder must be something that impedes motion: an obstacle, a barrier, a burden, or rough terrain.
Key structural parallels:
- Obstacles and blockages — “We hit a snag.” “There’s a roadblock.” “I ran into a problem.” Difficulties are solid objects placed in the path of progress. The metaphor makes problems feel concrete and locatable — they have a specific position on the route, and you must deal with them before moving on.
- Burdens and drag — “He’s weighed down by debt.” “She’s carrying a heavy load.” “That’s a real drag.” Some difficulties don’t block the path but slow the traveler. The metaphor maps these onto weight — things you must carry that sap your energy and reduce your speed. Progress continues, but at a cost.
- Rough terrain — “It’s been a rocky road.” “We’re in rough waters.” “Uphill battle.” The path itself becomes harder to traverse. The difficulty is not a discrete object but a condition of the environment. This variant captures systemic or chronic difficulties as opposed to one-time obstacles.
- Entrapment — “Stuck in a rut.” “Bogged down.” “Mired in bureaucracy.” The worst impediments don’t just slow you — they stop you entirely. The traveler sinks into soft ground or gets caught in something and cannot move at all. Stuckness is the extreme case of impediment.
- Detours and diversions — “We had to work around it.” “A roundabout way of solving the problem.” “A long detour.” Some impediments can’t be removed, only avoided. The metaphor maps this onto taking an alternative route — more time, more effort, but eventual progress.
Where It Breaks
- Not all difficulties are spatial — the metaphor forces every problem into the shape of a physical obstruction. But some difficulties are about ambiguity (not knowing which path to take), not about blockage (knowing the path but finding it blocked). A problem like “what should I do with my life?” is not an obstacle in the road — it’s a fork with no signpost. The impediment metaphor handles obstructions well but handles uncertainty poorly.
- Removing the obstacle does not always solve the problem — in physical motion, once the rock is cleared, the path is open and you continue. In life, removing a difficulty often reveals another one behind it, or changes the nature of the journey itself. The metaphor makes problem-solving feel like sequential obstacle-clearing, which underestimates problems that are recursive, systemic, or self-generating.
- The metaphor assumes a single path — impediments only make sense relative to a defined direction of travel. But many difficulties arise precisely because there is no clear path. When you don’t know where you’re going, nothing is an obstacle and everything is an obstacle. The impediment frame presupposes the very clarity that difficulties often take away.
- Some difficulties are features, not bugs — the metaphor treats all impediments as bad. But resistance builds muscle. Friction creates traction. “Obstacles are opportunities” is a cliche precisely because the default impediment metaphor frames them as purely negative. The source domain has no vocabulary for productive resistance.
- The metaphor individualizes structural problems — “she hit a roadblock” places the difficulty on one person’s path. But systemic discrimination, poverty, and institutional failure are not rocks in individual roads — they are the terrain itself. The impediment metaphor makes it easy to say “just go around it” when the real problem is that the entire landscape is hostile.
Expressions
- “We hit a roadblock” — encountering a difficulty that stops progress
- “I ran into a problem” — colliding with an obstruction on the path
- “Bogged down in details” — slowed to a halt by soft, clinging terrain
- “Stuck in a rut” — trapped in a groove with no lateral movement
- “It’s been an uphill battle” — difficulty as hostile gradient
- “She’s weighed down by responsibilities” — difficulty as physical burden
- “We had to work around it” — circumventing an immovable obstacle
- “A stumbling block” — something that trips you mid-stride
- “That’s a real drag” — difficulty as friction opposing forward motion
- “Smooth sailing from here” — the absence of impediments as calm water
- “We’re in uncharted territory” — difficulty as pathlessness
Origin Story
Lakoff and Johnson identify DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION as part of the Event Structure metaphor system, discussed across multiple chapters of Metaphors We Live By and developed more fully in Philosophy in the Flesh (1999). The system is built on a foundational mapping: PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS, ACTION IS MOTION, and STATES ARE LOCATIONS. Within this framework, anything that prevents action must be something that prevents motion.
The Osaka Master Metaphor List includes this as a distinct entry, recognizing it as one of the most productive sub-mappings in the Event Structure system. Its productivity is visible in the sheer number of everyday expressions it generates — English has dozens of idioms for problems-as-obstacles, and nearly every language has comparable constructions, suggesting deep embodied grounding in the universal experience of physical obstruction.
The metaphor’s influence extends beyond everyday language into policy and strategy. Military planners speak of “removing obstacles.” Business strategists identify “barriers to entry.” Therapists help clients “overcome” their problems. In each domain, the impediment frame shapes not just how difficulties are described but how they are addressed: the solution is always some form of clearing the path.
References
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (1980), Chapters 9, 14, and 25
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), Chapter 11 — the Event Structure metaphor system
- Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. & Schwartz, A. Master Metaphor List (1991), “Difficulties Are Impediments to Motion”
- Kovecses, Z. Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation (2005) — cross-cultural evidence for the impediment metaphor