The gift of deciding what matters to us

I just finished reading a book that I had picked up at a recent conference. It is titled "I moved your cheese" and is written as a critical parody on the 1998 bestseller: "Who moved my cheese." Over the years, I have frequently mentioned that old bestseller in my presentations, lectures, and writings, because the message it provides is -in itself- strong enough: two mice and two little people who live in a maze and daily meet each other in cheese station C, where they obtain their cheese. On a bad day, however, the cheese has disappeared, and everybody is in disarray. Yet, the two mice don’t waste too much time: they quickly put on their running shoes, and set off into the maze in order to find new cheese.

The two little people do what most people do: for a few weeks they grumble about the injustice done to them, but in the end one of them suggests that they follow the example of the mice and also start looking for a new cheese source. The other doesn’t want to hear about this, because he feels that his rights have been violated, so he prefers to sit and wait until the cheese supply in station C is restored.

The little person that takes off to look for new cheese learns many lessons on his way to the uncertain future, but eventually discovers a new, bigger cheese station, where, lo and behold, he gets reunited with the two mice, who have settled in, but nevertheless keep their running shoes hanging around their necks in case of a new crisis.

Moral of the story: changes are continuous and unpredictable, and flexibility is the best way to respond to it.

In "I Moved Your Cheese" the author firmly criticizes the above story. While he agrees that life is full of surprises and that we must be flexible, he also feels that we shouldn’t take everything as a given, but should think critically about our situation and the changes we face. He comments that the first book fails to address the issue of who has actually moved the cheese.  Thus, he feels that the figures in that story promote a victimized mentality: someone took the cheese out of our mouth, and now we just look for other cheese -- no questions asked. The writer underscores that if we think this way, we will always remain the victims of "others".

In “I moved your cheese” the author introduces three mice, Max, Zed and Big, each of whom is exceptional in his own way. Max is incurably inquisitive and wants to know the "how" and "why" of everything. This is how he ultimately discovers that there is a world outside the maze, where people decide where the cheese gets moved to, so they can study the reactions of the mice. Once aware of this, Max begins to manipulate the logbooks of the people when they are asleep, and realizes that he now has the power to determine where the cheese will be placed on a daily basis.

Zed lives in the maze like all the other mice, but doesn’t care much about cheese. He eats just enough to stay afloat, and doesn’t allow his happiness to depend on abundance or scarcity of cheese. The other mice don’t understand him, because he is so stoic and detached in a way. When Max tells Zed about the world outside the maze and all the manipulations that go on with the cheese, Zed wisely responds: "the problem is not that the mouse in the maze, but that the maze in the mouse is: we all determine for ourselves what our shortcomings are".

Big, finally, becomes disturbed by the growing masses of mice around him and actively starts looking for a way out. Strong and athletic as he is, he begins to test the walls of the maze. One day he gathers all his physical and mental strength and runs straight through the thinnest wall, leaving a big hole in the maze for whoever wants to follow him, but determined for himself to never return to that restrictive maze.

Of course it depends on each of us to decide who we want to identify with: the mice of the second book, the mice and little people of the first book, or our own unique self, flexible and quick, but at the same time creative and critically thinking about what, in this life, is most important for us.

The gift of our past

The other day I was browsing through one of the well-known online newspapers, and came across a piece titled: "If you could erase something from your past, would you?"* I decided to first philosophize about the question, and then consider reading the article. If someone would have asked me this question ten or fifteen years ago, I would have probably admitted and even pointed out which parts of my past I would like to erase. Yet, today I look at it entirely differently. This may be one of the benefits of maturing: Today I see my life as an interesting book. One of which each page is valuable, because it contributes to a fascinating, illuminating whole. And the nicest thing to all of this is that the book is not complete yet, because there are new paragraphs written every day, leading to new pages and, ultimately, chapters.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to me. Everyone is writing his or her own book all the time. The difference may be that we're not all equally interested in creating new chapters. Wim Sonneveld, a popular Dutch comedian from the past, recorded a conference of an old man in a nursing home who reminisces about his wife. In a whining tone he compares her to a beautiful book, but one that he has already finished. This may sound funny, but if you think about it, it may also indicate one of the following facts: 1) his wife was deceased (which I believe was the case here), 2) his wife was alive but had ceased to add new meaning to her life, so there was no surprise element anymore in their relationship, or 3) he lost interest in his wife, as happens in so many long-term relationships, and was thus no longer interested in possible new dimensions she had to offer.

Of course we cannot prevent others from losing interest in us, but we can nourish interest in our own lives. Colleagues, partners, friends, and even family members come and go in our lives, but there’s no escaping ourselves, at least not while we have all our marbles.

And so we continue writing our book, but we do so in our own preferred way: we can fill page after page  with a monotonous pattern of recurring predictabilities, or we can spice up our story with self-development, new experiences, fun and gratifying activities and meaningful work. We can also determine our attitude to previous chapters: we can consider them as failed and regret them, wishing we could forget them as soon as possible, or we can accept them for what they really are: the building blocks that have contributed to the person who we are today, and the person we will be in the future. Ultimately, it’s not the glorious moments that bring us our insights, but the less pleasant experiences of which we may feel less proud or perhaps even detect a small remnant sorrow or shame. Those are the moments that molded us into understanding and compassionate beings and that form the foundation for the insights that we now share with younger generations. I became aware of that once again last week in the first workshop this semester: I told the participants about a major challenge that I faced some twenty or more years ago, and the fact that I did not understand what it would all be good for, but now today, I can tap from that enormous wealth of beautiful and less striking, robust and fragile, clear and fuzzy, sunny and dark experiences, and use them as illustrations in broadening the horizons of those who value it.  So expunge? I don’t think so…

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* The Huffington Post