Who Moved My Cheese?

As I was pondering (see my last blog), I came across this book (Who moved my cheese?) and that movie (Silicon Jungle). More about the latter later, for now its the book and a review !!!

Of late, I have developed a voracious appetite for books (I had it previously, but never in the same league as now), what with wrapping arnd 5 in the past 2 weeks or so, of which the review would be fed in subsequently for the readers. I concentrated mainly on Indian Authors, for one fine day, even I plan to finish my book, Memoirs. As I was scouring through the rummage in our lib., I chanced upon a book which had the punchline "One-Minute Manager". As I flipped the pages of this "Who Moved My Cheese", I thought that this book is somethin where you would find recipes, for life instead. A arnd 100 page book, a worth read when on a flight, which can be wrapped in 30 minutes flat.

I borrowed it and ran back to my room to have a go. It starts off with encomiums for the author Dr.Spencer Johnson, and that it had changed lives drastically all over U.S. Some went further ahead by tipping it as the bestseller, a silent killer which no one ever heard about. And then we have the narrator, Ken Blanchard, sermonising that the book had done not only him, but his colleagues a lot of good in their life.

Ken Blanchard, on one of his party days, spent time narrating to his friends as to "Who moved the cheese".The storyline stands simple: Two mice who thought simple, and two Littlepeople (Humans small in size and fed on cheese), who used their complex brains for every understanding and emotion, lived in a Maze, where everyone searched for their cheese, which could symbolise anything such as money, fame, love, just anything that we would want it to look like. There were dark corners where people lost their way, yes there were stations in some corners where one would find loads of cheese. It so happens that one fine day, Scurry and Sniffy (the mice) and Haw and Hem (L.P.) chance upon a chessestation which thought would end with them for eternity ... and so their behavorial traits change. Eventually, one fine day, the cheese ends, and the mice, which thought simple and had observed that fact for sometime, moved away in search of a new station. However Haw and Hem were afraid to move in the dark, instead they started blaming each other, crying out injustice heaped on them, and waited patiently for someone to put some cheese for them. The wait continued long, long enough for them to weaken, and thus near to their end. One fine day, Haw decided that his life needed a move, a change for the better, a change for which he would have to overcome his fears. He goes out in search of new cheese, weary, depressed at times, with a feelin that he needed to return, but overcame his fears until he chanced upon a lifetime supply of cheese.

The moral of the story was scripted like a graffiti on a cake of cheese, which read,

"Change Happens
They keep moving the cheese

Anticipate Change
Get ready for the cheese to move

Monitor Change
Smell the cheese often so you Know When it is gettin Old

Adapt to Change Quickly
The quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, The sooner you enjoy the new cheese

Change
Move with the Cheese

Enjoy Change !!
Savour the Adventure and Enjoy The taste of New Cheese!

Be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again and again!
They keep moving the cheese. "

At the end of the day, I thought over the whole essay again. Had I got a chance to read this book arnd 4 years ago, then probably I would have enjoyed my UG life in the best possible manner. Yet I have no qualms abt that, I look forward, I dream for a future. And the author rightly puts it, that the wisest person is one who laughs away at this follies and tried to rectify them. True, laugh at yourself before u laugh at others. And at the end of the day, I laughed at this paradox in life, where one needs to quote abt him as "I am a man of action, not a man of words". Life's too simple after all, isn't it ???