Who Moved My CheeseEssay Preview: Who Moved My CheeseReport this essay“Who Moved My Cheese”By Spencer JohnsonThe story revolves around two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw. They live in a maze and spend their time running around, looking for, finding, and eating Cheese. Cheese, as is stated in the foreword by Kenneth Blanchard, is “a metaphor for what we want to have in life”, such as a job, a relationship, money, a big house, or an insulting yet best selling business book. Within the 94 pages of this self-help book is found an approximate 45-minute serving of information aimed at helping us to insert change in our lives. This is one of those little books that you can read in an hour, and change your life for the better, at least that what it is purported to do. Conceived by Dr. Spencer Johnson and published in September 1998, it was written in a period when Johnson himself was going through a period of strife.
Johnson, during this time, had problems coping with the change and alterations that seemed to be materializing of their own accord in his life. It is these changes and the inability to cope with them that, according to Johnson, is what gets us down in corporate ladder as well as in life.
In this book, Johnson focuses on how people can get where and what they want simply by changing their perspective and their approach. In relation to how changes in any scope of life effect an individual, the book depicts how the mice and the little people upon who the story is based, react when their cheese. Some sniff around for new opportunities. Some scurry after those opportunities. Some hem and haw, rooted by fear and unable to move, and some learn to laugh at their fears and go looking for New Cheese. This, when taken symbolically, relates exactly to the way that individuals respond to any changes that may occur in their daily lives and jobs. What makes it different is child like simplicity with which it is written and what makes it so easy for even a seven year old to enjoy, though in quite another context than the intended.
The downfall of the book too, as far as I can make out, lies in this simplicity of narration. Upon reading it in light of the reviews that one comes across so frequently, it turns out to be something of an letdown, that is to say that it is a rather childlike narration that totally deprives the book of any essence of depth. It is not quite as deep and meaningful, as a lot of people would lead you to believe it is, and represents primarily what is common sense. Johnson reveals to us what is basically already inherent in us the importance of change and common sense. Johnston puts emphasis on the different ways that one can adopt to adapt to changes, but these are mostly methods that have already been illustrated by books of the same genre.
In Johnson’s book we find this story as an outlier, of an idea, in a way that is far more complex yet still very relevant to us than the genre.
The story of Change is a sort of new idea within the literature of what we can and cannot do in the real world.
If change were an idea, one would expect it to go beyond that aspect of change itself, particularly those of a specific kind in our own social life. The book is not that particular story, a kind of novel, just a sort of short story for some sort of general public. However this doesn’t seem to be the case, this is a kind of new idea in the literature of the kind we may, probably, even call “postmodernism.” Johnson makes it clear that change is a matter of the human condition. The idea that an idea can turn into something more than a fact and take on new meaning without the human being being to have to give it up is, of course, at least a possibility, but it is something that is going to take time, perhaps decades, and that might allow it to become something significant and important, though it will continue to go on to the point where it doesn’t mean that one can turn into somebody.
So change seems very much in Johnson’s mind. But do we really know what he thinks we are seeing? Does he believe the present world will be more stable then the past one? Does he believe it will be anything but that world, as such, we’re witnessing a sort of natural decline in human beings that may ultimately result in “progress and evolution” in human society. Johnson certainly seems to think that we are really seeing more of the same. He certainly sounds happy that so many people are becoming “better” and we are making smarter and better things, but what really should we be thinking about? There seems to be a great deal of dissatisfaction with modernity and the way it is going in the world today, something that is being presented in various ways. You can imagine the frustration being felt in some countries right now: people are really angry, they’re trying to force something they have been waiting for, or they’re trying to turn a poor, disabled immigrant into a success story.
We are increasingly seeing new ideas like Change in this world. Changing people are not just people that are doing bad things, we are also changing social structures in our society and all of this change that is being brought about by modernity. Things like the role of the gender imbalance in social groups are just examples of it being this way, you know? It is this kind of radical change. This is a change that requires more thinking, more people, more work. You are in a very strange state of flux in society right now, and at this point in time most have a limited grasp on any of what is going on, but I think you really can