We had to read this ridiculous story for my internship class called "Who Moved My Cheese?" It's a story that corporate companies tell their employees to get them to reevaluate their work ethics and be better employees. You can apply the story to all aspects of your life (relationships, family, school, jobs, etc.)
The basic premise is that there are four characters: two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two tiny people (Hem and Haw). They all live in basically a rat maze. There are stations throughout the maze where cheese is. Every day the four characters look for cheese. They all hit jackpot and find a huge supply of cheese in one station. While the two mice work hard every day to get to it (getting up early, running, inventorying the cheese), the two tiny people get lazy (waking up later in the day, moving their house next to the cheese station, becoming entitled). One day (as you can easily predict) the station runs out of cheese. The two mice saw this coming and quickly begin surveying the rest of the maze for a new cheese station. When the tiny people find their cheese station now empty, they sit and cry, yelling "who moved our cheese?" After a very long time, Haw gets up and realizes the cheese is never coming back and starts searching for a new station (by now Sniff and Scurry have won the lottery of cheese stations with every cheese imaginable). Hem refuses to leave his empty cheese station though, insisting that he's comfortable here and wouldn't like new cheese. Haw learns valuable lessons on his voyage for new cheese. He writes these lessons on the walls, hoping maybe they will lead Hem to him. These lessons include phrases like "Old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese" and "The more important cheese is to you, the more you want to hold on to it". Eventually Haw finds Sniff and Scurry in the new Cheese Station Utopia. We never know if Hem leaves his station.
The point is that we all share characteristics with each character. The Sniffs and Scurrys accept and move with change, the Haws sit and cry before learning life lessons that get them moving, and the Hems stay stuck in their old ways.
For class, we had to write a one page reflection answering: "Please describe a scenario in which your “cheese” was “moved” and what you did about it. Further, please reflect if you think this was the best possible solution –why or why not?"
I won't bore you with my page long metaphor about getting over an empty cheese station, but I did end the paper with a cheese-inspired phrase of my own:
This is my own version of an already famous quote, but regardless, I like it. I got more out of my own page summary and a silly story about cheese than I thought I would. We can sit and cry over our losses, or we can get up and move before we starve. And we should never be eating cheese that tricks our mouths while leaving an empty feeling in our bellies.
I know this blog is supposed to be about my travelling experiences, but travelling is more than the pictures you take and the places you see. It's the lessons you learn from the most random of people when you didn't even know you were listening.
There's a beautiful sculpture of a disappearing man, representing the effects of communism on people. I pass it every day but today I finally stopped and took the time to take a photo of it. I think it's fitting for the lessons I've learned recently. And it's truly beautiful. I hope you'll enjoy the photo I included.
The basic premise is that there are four characters: two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two tiny people (Hem and Haw). They all live in basically a rat maze. There are stations throughout the maze where cheese is. Every day the four characters look for cheese. They all hit jackpot and find a huge supply of cheese in one station. While the two mice work hard every day to get to it (getting up early, running, inventorying the cheese), the two tiny people get lazy (waking up later in the day, moving their house next to the cheese station, becoming entitled). One day (as you can easily predict) the station runs out of cheese. The two mice saw this coming and quickly begin surveying the rest of the maze for a new cheese station. When the tiny people find their cheese station now empty, they sit and cry, yelling "who moved our cheese?" After a very long time, Haw gets up and realizes the cheese is never coming back and starts searching for a new station (by now Sniff and Scurry have won the lottery of cheese stations with every cheese imaginable). Hem refuses to leave his empty cheese station though, insisting that he's comfortable here and wouldn't like new cheese. Haw learns valuable lessons on his voyage for new cheese. He writes these lessons on the walls, hoping maybe they will lead Hem to him. These lessons include phrases like "Old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese" and "The more important cheese is to you, the more you want to hold on to it". Eventually Haw finds Sniff and Scurry in the new Cheese Station Utopia. We never know if Hem leaves his station.
The point is that we all share characteristics with each character. The Sniffs and Scurrys accept and move with change, the Haws sit and cry before learning life lessons that get them moving, and the Hems stay stuck in their old ways.
For class, we had to write a one page reflection answering: "Please describe a scenario in which your “cheese” was “moved” and what you did about it. Further, please reflect if you think this was the best possible solution –why or why not?"
I won't bore you with my page long metaphor about getting over an empty cheese station, but I did end the paper with a cheese-inspired phrase of my own:
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be hungry; it’s not. The worst thing in life is eating cheese that makes you feel hungry."
This is my own version of an already famous quote, but regardless, I like it. I got more out of my own page summary and a silly story about cheese than I thought I would. We can sit and cry over our losses, or we can get up and move before we starve. And we should never be eating cheese that tricks our mouths while leaving an empty feeling in our bellies.
I know this blog is supposed to be about my travelling experiences, but travelling is more than the pictures you take and the places you see. It's the lessons you learn from the most random of people when you didn't even know you were listening.
There's a beautiful sculpture of a disappearing man, representing the effects of communism on people. I pass it every day but today I finally stopped and took the time to take a photo of it. I think it's fitting for the lessons I've learned recently. And it's truly beautiful. I hope you'll enjoy the photo I included.
