Time & tide

I've noticed that the tide is frequently used as a metaphor in literature as something unstoppable or unharnessable by humans. Consider the famous tide quote: "Time and tide wait for no man" by Chaucer. Even still in common English when our circumstances change the tide is said to be 'turning' and we often speak of moving 'with' or 'against' the tide. Because most coastal locations around the world have some sort of tide (though admittedly not as big as ours here in the Bay of Fundy), it's just too tempting to create these handy tide metaphors.