Saturday, June 23, 2007
What I'm reading: Who moved my Cheese?
http://www.amazon.com/Moved-Cheese-Amazing-Deal-Change/dp/0399144463
It's short; I just read it in the bathtub. It is a parable and an allegory. It's a self-help book about how we process change.
My favorite self-help books do this; use simple stories that demonstrate profound truths. The Richest Man in Babylon, the Gospels, Aesop's Fables (Ethiopian talking animal stories), all do this. The Celestine Prophesy is a bit more complex,and then you move into the realm of didatic fiction such as Heinlein or the utopian novels.
Anyway, it's about these two mice, and one day the cheese has moved, so one of the mice goes to find new cheese. Fairly simple.
It's prefaced with a backstory of a few friends meeting for dinner and drinks at which the story of the mice is told, to make it clear that it's an allegory. It's further prefaces with lists of what other best-selling business self-help books the guy's written, to make it harder to miss the point.
It's a treatise on Austrian economics. Neoclassical, Keynsian and Marxists economics are mostly about managing static economies, but the Austrian insight is that economics is about evolution,and dealing with change. As the singularity approaches, it should be increasingly obvious that the Austrians are on to something.
During my life, I've sometimes had jobs that I understood were short term, while I've had other jobs that I thought of as careers. I've sometimes held the short term jobs longer than the career jobs. I'm well aware that my current employment is temporary, for a year or two in this industry, a few weeks at any given gig. Becoming a lawyer has sort of locked me into a situation where I'm not going to go back to being a dishwasher, but I don't have a paying law job either, so I've been coasting.
Recently I've been .. I have a shortage of get up and go; I take the path of least resistance and don't try to do much. I haven't always been that way.
Same with relationships; I had a girlfriend 20 years ago to 15 years ago, who I still feel emotionally invested in, in ways that I don't feel about, for example, the guy who called earlier and might want a date tonight. (He had to work last night and stood me up for the play.) Anyway, the book is about change, and how we deal with it.
I liked it.
http://www.amazon.com/Moved-Cheese-Amazing-Deal-Change/dp/0399144463
It's short; I just read it in the bathtub. It is a parable and an allegory. It's a self-help book about how we process change.
My favorite self-help books do this; use simple stories that demonstrate profound truths. The Richest Man in Babylon, the Gospels, Aesop's Fables (Ethiopian talking animal stories), all do this. The Celestine Prophesy is a bit more complex,and then you move into the realm of didatic fiction such as Heinlein or the utopian novels.
Anyway, it's about these two mice, and one day the cheese has moved, so one of the mice goes to find new cheese. Fairly simple.
It's prefaced with a backstory of a few friends meeting for dinner and drinks at which the story of the mice is told, to make it clear that it's an allegory. It's further prefaces with lists of what other best-selling business self-help books the guy's written, to make it harder to miss the point.
It's a treatise on Austrian economics. Neoclassical, Keynsian and Marxists economics are mostly about managing static economies, but the Austrian insight is that economics is about evolution,and dealing with change. As the singularity approaches, it should be increasingly obvious that the Austrians are on to something.
During my life, I've sometimes had jobs that I understood were short term, while I've had other jobs that I thought of as careers. I've sometimes held the short term jobs longer than the career jobs. I'm well aware that my current employment is temporary, for a year or two in this industry, a few weeks at any given gig. Becoming a lawyer has sort of locked me into a situation where I'm not going to go back to being a dishwasher, but I don't have a paying law job either, so I've been coasting.
Recently I've been .. I have a shortage of get up and go; I take the path of least resistance and don't try to do much. I haven't always been that way.
Same with relationships; I had a girlfriend 20 years ago to 15 years ago, who I still feel emotionally invested in, in ways that I don't feel about, for example, the guy who called earlier and might want a date tonight. (He had to work last night and stood me up for the play.) Anyway, the book is about change, and how we deal with it.
I liked it.
Comments:
Post a Comment
