Who Moved My Cheese?

 

 

Driving up the canyon with my family this summer, a road construction sign struck me (figuratively, not literally). The large orange triangle reading “BUMP AHEAD” seized my mind.  Wouldn’t it be powerful, I thought, if we knew when bumps were coming in our lives? Then we could organize and prepare for trials.

Maybe some challenges we face are predictable. Could preparing for them minimize the crisis and help to carry us through?

One of my favorite books is a small 50-page tome called Who Moved My Cheese? The parable is this: two mice are running through a maze. They lace up their sneakers, follow their daily path to the cheese, and eat it up. But one day the cheese has moved. Their basis for happiness is gone.

One mouse throws himself down in a corner. “Who moved my cheese?!” he laments. For days he tries to return to the same spot where his cheese had been. The cheese never returns.

The other mouse, however, understands that his reality has changed. He laces up his shoes and runs on to find new cheese. The author points out that if the mice had noticed their cheese pile growing low, they could have made preparations for new cheese instead of wallowing in misery when their former cheese went missing.

My cheese has moved recently. I was feeling completely out of whack with our family schedule: school had started and I had multiple children in school for the first time, some after school activities, and heavy commuting. Each night I felt beat up, imbalanced and somewhat unhappy. I would go to bed wondering what was wrong with me.

And then I remembered the parable of the cheese–my own cheese had moved! I realized I had more children in school and a new evening schedule. I could not commute, do the brutal half-day kindergarten schedule, teach aerobics, do dinner, preschool, gymnastics, piano, four children, homework, family night and maintain my former schedule.

Nothing was wrong with me; I just didn’t see that my cheese had moved. The schedule I enjoyed previously with fewer children in school was not an option anymore. Maybe I could have looked ahead and thought about how the kindergarten schedule or a late gymnastics class was going to affect our family. But it seemed I was determined to keep trying the same old thing, like a mouse returning to his old cheese, when my reality had shifted.

Seeing clearly that change is on the horizon helps me to face my specific challenges with more clarity. I  can make preparations and organize myself, mentally and physically, for what lies ahead.

Some changes are good (like a new baby), but even with good change comes stress. Some changes are rather boring, like knowing the car is getting old and we need to save for a new one.

Some changes seem small, like children starting a new grade, but they can actually have big impacts on the flow of our lives. A new grade means maturation and new trials. And some changes are heavy, like an ailing parent, serious illness or job cut. Preparations could make all the difference in our ability to handle these.

I had to make some big choices about my time commitments to help shape our new family reality into something less stressful. Why? Because my life with my small children is my cheese, my happiness, and it is definitely on the move. I know it won’t stay the same, and I know that my children will be gone someday. So I’m putting on my mouse sneakers and running, with a lighter schedule, so that I can enjoy these precious moments of life with my little ones.

 

QUESTION: What changes are coming your way over the next weeks or months? What preparations do you need to make to deal with some of these changes with courage?

CHALLENGE: Identify a change that has taken you by surprise and some steps you can take to lace up your mouse sneakers and find the new location of your cheese.

Original article was published September 25, 2011.

Edited by Lisa Hoelzer.
Image from Flickr.com/iDTechCamp. Graphics added by Anna Jenkins.

About Dawn Wessman

Dawn Lammers Wessman is a joyful, imperfect and sometimes sleepy mother of five small children. She and her family live in Boston, MA. As a certified personal trainer she teaches cycle, yoga, pilates, bootcamp and weight lifting classes. Dawn manages the Bloom Game for Power of Moms, writing the weekly motivational emails that accompany the effective goal setting game. She produced workout videos such as Wedding Body Pilates, and now writes and public speaks, focusing on finding meaning in all aspects of life. She recently wrote a chaper for the book, Do Not Attempt in Heels: Mission Stories and Advice from Sisters Who Have Been There, recounting the physical struggles of an LDS mission to Russia. She writes about her search for purpose in motherhood on her personal blog Dawn Blogs and her fitness findings at Courage Zone.