What is the summary of Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese?

A physician with a degree in psychology, Spencer Johnson's book Who Moved My Cheese is subtitled "An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life." That subtitle pretty much sums-up Johnson's theme. Who Moved My Cheese is the author's analysis of the emotional difficulties inherent in most people confronting fundamental changes in their lives. The title is a reference to discomfiting sensation most feel when the stability they have struggled to establish in their lives is suddenly upset by unanticipated change. "Who moved my cheese" serves as the primal cry of those whose comfortable little worlds have been interrupted by changes usually beyond their control.

Johnson's book begins with a chapter titled "The Story." In this story, the author describes four characters representing human emotions and reactions to change. Cheese represents the goal or the stability for which characters strive. Two of the four characters are mice named Sniff and Scurry. The other two characters are "littlepeople" (sic) described as "being who were as small as mice but who looked and acted a lot like people today." These little people are named Hem and Haw. The use of mice and mice-sized people is intended to contrast the psychological obstacles the latter face due to their superior ability to reason and analyze. The four characters are all placed in a maze in which cheese is the reward for advantageous decisions. For the mice, "cheese" is just that: cheese. For the littlepeople, however, it is "Cheese," meaning, the goals for which they strive, for example, success in business or stability in one's home-life. The maze, however, is fraught with uncertainty. As Johnson describes it, the "maze was a labyrinth of corridors and chambers, some containing delicious cheese. But there were also dark corners and blind alleys leading nowhere. It was easy place for anyone to get lost."

As Johnson's examination of human foibles and the anxiety associated with change in one's life continues, he emphasizes the importance of seeing within change the opportunity for greater reward. This "reward" is not monetary in nature, but rather a reference to the emotional or psychological advantages gained by developing the ability to adapt and even welcome change. Sort of a variation on the old adage "as one door closes, another opens," Johnson's thesis is that accepting change is essential for one's mental well-being and that over-analyzing situations frequently leads to emotional paralysis. The mice are simple creatures who instinctively react to adverse developments; the littlepeople are possessed of infinitely more complicated thought processes and, consequently, are more prone to overreacting to such developments and failing to approach metaphorical crossroads rationally.

Change, Johnson argues, is inevitable, and frequently foreseeable. The failure to anticipate change is one of our own doing, and the reluctance to accept and adapt accordingly is the cause of personal and professional failure. Abrupt change to one's routine or life is rarely welcome, but it is certain, and how one handles it is the key to one's sense of inner peace and personal fulfillment.