Survival of the Cheesiest

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, M.D. (Putnam, 1998/2002. $19.95, 94 pgs.)

THERE IS ALWAYS a reason for a best-selling book being a best-selling book. Dr. Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese is no exception. His book gets on the mat with a topic that a wide audience can relate to: change, and how to deal with it.

Change, Dr. Johnson intimates through a fable, is inevitable. Our favorite feeding grounds can become barren. It is then time to move on to better pasture. This is a message that many of the baby boomer generation - now on the verge of retirement - will find especially close to home.

Of course, Gen-X and Gen-Y have seen some degree of change in their lifetime. Yet it is the baby boomer generation that has experienced change most dramatically. Gone is the work-in-same-company-until-you-retire paradigm. Gone is the time in which one can support a family with a blue collar job without a college degree. Many boomers are now finding the advent of the internet, the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and new, increasingly-complex societal problems to be painfully intrusive on the mental-framework which they inherited from the 1950's and 60's, when optimism ran wild with the rapid advances of medicine, scientific achievement, and space exploration; much of which optimism, especially that of overcoming death and aging, has proved to be thus far unfounded.

Dr. Johnson's thesis is that the baby-boomer generation must adapt if it is survive (and prosper, for that matter). They must be willing to leave there comfort zones, and explore new horizons.

This is good advice, of course. But Dr. Johnson takes it a bit too far. Not only should one consider learning new skills, but perhaps one should consider forsaking one's spouse for another. At this point Dr. Johnson is injecting not an innovation booster, but a mutation which will lead to costly and painful consequences.

His work will encourage the reader to face change with a smile, which of course is commendable. Yet Johnson misses a crucial point: we should remain firm on principles, regardless of circumstances. The wars and tragedies of the past century have confirmed the need in our world for care and respect for our fellow man. Within the realm of principle we can help secure a better tommorow, regardless of external changes. Without principle, however, man will devolve into a most fearsome, cheese-eating monster.