push water uphill

present singular third person pushes water uphill · participle present pushing water uphill · participle past pushed water uphill · past pushed water uphill · alternative push water uphill with a rake · alternative push water uphill with a fork

1. idiomaticTo try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance or nearly futile awkwardness, the task being an uphill battle.

   A Salesman Unaided by the House is Pushing Water Uphill.

   1917, Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - Volume 21, Chilton Company, page 161

   4 more examples

   Without that commitment you will be pushing water uphill the whole time and will lose your own, necessary motivation.

   2012, Michael Roe, Marketing Professional Services, Routledge, →ISBN, page 9

   Persuading Kenny that measuring his calves did not require removal of his underpants and trousers was akin to pushing water uphill. He claimed that he couldn't tell what I was saying, which seemed strange as he had no problem deciphering the initial message.

   2013, Zoë C Lloyd, All Patients Great and Small: Tales of a Rural District Nurse, BalboaPress, →ISBN, page 28

   Our relationship with Donovan Leisure was doing well, in truth because Rod Hills and I worked so hard on it, but often it felt like pushing water uphill.

   2014, Roger Lane-Smith, A Fork in the Road: From Single Partner to Largest Legal Practice in the World, Icon Books, →ISBN

   And they have another drink, and they try to talk about something else, they really do, but it's like pushing water uphill: it won't work, and it's exhausting.

   2015, Stephanie Butland, Letters To My Husband, Random House, →ISBN, page 237