谁动了我的奶酪?(Who Moved My Cheese?)

　　an amazing way to deal with change in your work & in your life

　　dr spencer johnson

　　“cheese” – 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, or even an activity like jogging or golf.

　　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.

　　once, long ago, there lived 4 little characters who ran through a maze looking for cheese to nourish them & make them happy.

　　two were mice named “sniff” & “scurry” and two were little people named “hem” & “haw”.

　　every morning, the mice & the little people dressed in their running gear & headed over to cheese station c where they found their own kind of cheese. it was a large store of cheese that hem & haw eventually moved their homes to be closer to it & built a social life around it.

　　to make themselves feel more at home, hem & haw decorated the walls with sayings. one read: "having cheese makes you happy".

　　having cheese makes you happy

　　one morning, sniff & scurry arrived at cheese station c & discovered there was no cheese.

　　they weren’t surprised. since they had noticed the supply of cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the inevitable & knew instinctively what to do. they were quickly off in search of new cheese.

　　later that same day, hem & haw arrived. “what! no cheese? who moved my cheese? it’s not fair!”, hem yelled. they went home that night hungry & discouraged. but before they left, haw wrote on the wall:

　　the more important your cheese is to you, the more you want to hold onto it.

　　the next day hem & haw left their homes, & returned to cheese station c. but situation hadn’t changed. haw asked, “where are sniff & scurry? do you think they know something we don’t?” hem scoffed, “what would they know? they’re just simple mice. they just respond to what happens. we’re little people. we’re smarter.”

　　haw suggested, “maybe we should stop analyzing the situation so much and just get going & find some new cheese.

　　haw decided to leave cheese station c while hem was more comfortable staying in the cheeseless station c. haw announced, “it’s maze time!” and wrote:

　　if you do not change,

　　you can become extinct

　　who moved my cheese?

　　meanwhile, sniff & scurry went farther into the maze until they found cheese station n. they found what they had been looking for: a great supply of new cheese. it was the biggest store of cheese the mice had ever seen.

　　haw on the other hand become more anxious & wondered if he really wanted to go out into the maze. he wrote a saying on the wall ahead of him & stared at it for some time: