Who Moved My Cheese - Spencer Johnson

‘The only thing constant in life is change’ says a famous quote by Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher. Spencer Johnson exemplifies this saying through his beautiful rendition of how to adapt to change in his book - ‘Who moved my cheese’.

‘Who moved my cheese’ is a story about two mice and two little men who live in a maze and constantly search for cheese. Cheese here, is a metaphor that holds different meaning for different people. For some it might mean food, money, property, success while for others it might mean family, love, relationships and pride and for some others it might mean health, peace of mind and spiritual contentment. We constantly search for this cheese in our lives as it gives us a sense of achievement making us happy.

The story gives us an insight into the mindset of different people when they achieve this cheese in their lives. Similarly, when our protagonists find a cheese station with abundant cheese, the little men consumed it carelessly while the mice were calculative while savouring success. When the cheese exhausted, the mice went in search of new cheese while the little men blamed their luck and waited for the cheese to return by itself until one of them decided to venture again into the maze, against the odds, to find new cheese. His experience, while searching, failing and eventually finding new cheese, forms the crux of this book.

While the book addresses the change in all aspects of our lives, it mainly addresses the change in work. One of the major points mentioned in the book is that change will happen, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. The book tells us to face the change, rather than running away from it. Failing to do so will lead us to obsolescence and eventually throw us out of the competition. We tend to hold on to our achievements and success and build our lives around it. But we fail to realize that our excessive dependence on it will eventually lead to our downfall. We tend to be content with this achievement whereas the world and its needs change around us.

Here, the author advises us to keep monitoring our work and notice small changes as also the growing market so that we are able to anticipate the change. The key is to overcome our fears and to take risk if we want to enjoy new success in life rather than remaining stagnant. The book tells us to enjoy the journey towards the change and consider it as a learning phase. The author affirms that, in spite of the failures that we face, change can be positive. All it takes is to quickly anticipate and change our methodology to suit the change. In a way, we need to change and reform ourselves, which eventually leads us to newer success stories. When we take risks by overcoming our fear of failure, we allow ourselves to grow even beyond our belief.

With the example of the different mentalities of the little men and mice, the author reiterates the fact that we should keep changing ourselves to adapt to the ever changing changes around us and that the process should be continuous in nature. It clearly portrays that we are supposed to be the change to counter any change that daunt us.