Life is Like...
You know, you cannot say "life is like" anything because anything you try to put forth as an example is a subset of life and thus not a worthy comparison of the whole. Life is not like anything. Life is everything. All your experiences, every one you touch, anything you build or destroy or create, all these have affects.
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. Well, if I walk over and kick the door jam with my bare foot, I'm going to break my toes. Looks like I know what I'll get there.
Life is like life, only not nearly as complicated. Life is like a complex system. Oh, wait, life is the basis for complex systems.
People say life is like something in order to remove some layer of pain to complexity. Generally, people say things like this to ease someone else's suffering.
There was a game on my old Palm pilot called Palm Life. It was a set of dots on the screen that interacted with each other based on some set of rules. They might flourish or they might all die out. It was mesmerizing. It was particularly fun because you could influence the life by touching the screen. If you touched a blank space, you created life. If you touched a dark space, you destroyed it. You could play God. There is a game called Sim-Island where you have villagers who warship you. I can't find a link. I remember a buddy who played it saying every now and then you had to make a disaster happen in order to keep the people a bit scared of you. Who needs God when things are going so well?