Who Moved My Cheese?

People work hard for their Cheese, and everyone wishes that, once they’ve found what they want, those things will last forever. Eventually, though, everything changes: Despite our best efforts, relationships end, jobs disappear, resources dry up, and people find themselves adrift. Wishing that this weren’t true doesn’t prepare people for the time when the Cheese runs out. It’s much more effective and powerful to accept that good things are finite and to be prepared to find new resources when the old ones disappear.

In the Cheese story, Hem and Haw respond to the loss of their Cheese by hemming and hawing instead of sniffing out, and scurrying toward, a new source of Cheese as do the mice Sniff and Scurry. Hem and Haw waste precious days by resisting the truth, complaining about their predicament, and arguing that it’s not their fault. “They were becoming frustrated and angry and were blaming each other for the situation they were in” (40).

It might be true that someone else took their Cheese. It might even be true that this is unfair and wrong, and that other people owe them Cheese. It’s also true that Hem and Haw failed to monitor their Cheese stash and didn’t notice that they were consuming it at a rate that would cause it to disappear even if no one else took any of it. It would be much more effective for Hem and Haw to figure out what they did wrong than to blame others, or fate, or circumstances for their problem. In the time it takes them to argue that others owe them some Cheese, they can instead find a new stash and enjoy it.

It’s also more effective to accept the reality that the old Cheese is gone and won’t come back, since this frees them to move forward and search for new Cheese. Sniff and Scurry already have located a fresh Cheese stash, but “Hem and Haw were still back in Cheese Station C evaluating their situation” (39-40). Hem and Haw risk dying of starvation while they argue that they’re entitled to more Cheese.

The simple act of facing the truth, and then asking, “What can we do to solve this problem?” is the strategy on which Haw finally settles. Freed from the shackles of denial, regret, and resistance, Haw simply moves forward, tackling the task at hand. Before long, he finds more Cheese than ever.

When their cheese disappears, the mice Sniff and Scurry have a simple reaction: They set forth to find more. The humans, on the other hand, make things complicated and waste precious time.

Sniff sniffs out possible locations while Scurry scurries through the Maze, trying to find new caches of cheese. It’s a form of teamwork, as each mouse brings to the task what it does best. Using this technique, they quickly find a giant cache of cheese and begin to enjoy it.

The humans, Hem and Haw, behave as most people do when a sudden crisis erupts: They dither and argue, get angry and depressed, wallow in regret and fear, insist that the world owes them Cheese, and otherwise do everything except search for a new supply. Daily, they “went to Cheese Station C, found no Cheese, and returned home, carrying their worries and frustrations with them” (41).

All this time-wasting does serve certain basic purposes. It gives the humans a chance to avoid admitting their own responsibility for the problem. It allows them time to blame others in the hope that someone else will solve the problem for them. It helps them postpone facing the need to find more Cheese and avoid starvation. It distracts them from their fears of the unknown. It’s also unnecessarily complicated.

A much simpler approach is the way the mice respond to the problem: They know ahead of time that a stash of cheese will eventually run out or go sour, so they’re always ready to react quickly when, inevitably, the cheese disappears. Wasting no time trying to construct a complicated way to avoid fixing the problem themselves, the mice simply head out into the Maze, searching together for more supplies. With this simple technique, the mice successfully locate a new stash.

Haw finally realizes that the old Cheese is really gone and that something useful must be done. He takes the mice’s approach and begins to hunt for more Cheese. Though this process is at times discouraging and scary, it’s vastly more inspiring than sitting back at home, waiting for someone else to solve the problem, and slowly starving. It’s also much simpler: To eat more Cheese, find more Cheese.