Who moved my Cheese?

Book Title: Who moved my Cheese? - An A-mazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life Author: Spencer Johnson Year written/published: 1998 Book Source: Google Books Summary: This thin short book teaches us on how to deal with change using cheese, mice, and LittlePeople as metaphors. My Comments: This book is so thin we can read it less than an hour. In addition, it is so light heartening that anyone from a kid to an adult can read it! The meanings and metaphors are what we need to derive from it… it has powerful hidden meanings of change and how we deal with it. Some extracts:

Some phrases…

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men often go astray ~ Robert Burns 1759 - 1796 Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered,  but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our ways. lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley. But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us ~ A. J. Cronin

Some cheesy theories..

• Having cheese makes you happy
• The more important your cheese is to you, the more you want to hold on to it
• If you do not change you can become extinct
• What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
• Smell the cheese often so you know when its getting old
• movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese
• When you stop being afraid, you feel good!
• Imagining yourself enjoying your new cheese leads you to it
• The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese
• It is safe to find new cheese, that to remain in a cheeseless situation
• old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese
• when you see that you can fund and enjoy new cheese, you change course
• noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that are to come

The story of who moved my cheese?

Who moved my cheese? is a story about change that takes place in a maze where 4 amusing characters look for ‘cheese’ – cheese being a metaphor for what we want to have in life, whether it is a job, a relationship, money, a big  house, freedom, health, recognition, spiritual peace… etc. Each of us has our own idea of what Cheese is, and we pursue it because we believe it makes us happy. If we get it, we often become attached to it. And if we lose it, or it’s taken away, it can be traumatic. The ‘Maze’ in the story represents where you spend time looking for what you want. It can be organization you work in, the community you live in, or the relationships you have in your life.

The 4 imaginary characters of who moved my cheese?

Sometimes we may act like Sniff who sniffs out change early, or Scurry who scurries into action, or Hem who denies and resists change, as he fears it will lead to something worse, or Haw who learns to adapt in time when he sees changing can lead to something better! Whatever parts of us we choose to use, we all share something in common: a need to find out way in the Maze and succeed in changing times.