Who moved your cheese?
October 1, 2009 by Milton Kamwendo
Unleashing Greatness
If nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies. The crawling worm of today is the beautiful butterfly of tomorrow – only if the worm is willing to change. Not all adversity is bad – particularly if we are benefiting from it. What we mourn about is perhaps a blessing for someone. The songs we wish to silence are perhaps someone’s flavour of the party. However, what is certain in all life is that change happens – no one is immune to change and nothing can ever remain the same. To make enemies fast we must try changing things. To make enemies of posterity we must preserve the status quo.
Sometimes we wake up to find our cheese, our favourite cheese moved. Regardless of who moved the cheese, the cheese could not have remained the same. Cheese represents whatever we want out of life – wealth, goals, aspirations, jobs, peace, health, family, power, and a whole host of other things. There are four main constants in life – God, change, principles and choice. How we interact with each of these factors determines our destiny.
God
There is no human being who is infallible and immortal. No one has a monopoly over the future and a franchise over life. Just this knowledge is enough to keep all of us humbly in the full awareness that at one time we will be forgotten. Those who once sang our praises, like us, would also be no more to remind people of our gallantry. Remember how Joseph saved Egypt from a debilitating famine and after some years there arose a generation that did not know Joseph.
Knowing that God is in charge of the universe is important and comforting. If things are bad right now we should not worry because things are going to change. If things are good right now we should also not worry too because things are going to change all the same.
Shakespeare, in As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7 reminds us: “All the world is a stage, all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and no one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” Life is brief and precious. It is a stage whereon we play in full view of the Master of the Universe and once our role is finished we leave. Sometimes we leave to thunderous applause and at times to silent shocked stares of onlookers. The Master of the Universe should surely be amused when he looks at the grand theatre called Earth.
Life is like a candle passed from generation to generation. With the candle in hand we want it to burn as brightly as possible, so we play our modest part. A live that does not fulfil the Master’s purpose is wasted. George Bernard Shaw was truly inspired when he wrote: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” The true joy is to know that we make a difference and the world is a little better because we lived.
Shaw continues: “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” With such a spirit I am sure the Master of the Universe can only smile contentedly.
Change
Change always comes bearing gifts. He who rejects change’s gifts is the architect of decay. We know that the only human institution that rejects progress is the cemetery. W. Edwards Deming is the father of the Quality Revolution. Once he said: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” Unless we willing change direction we end up where we are going.
Sometimes we reject change because of the security that we feel that what we know is guaranteed to give. The pursuit of security is the most limiting thing on earth. The person who pursues security is like a person who would rather chop off his limbs in order to get artificial ones that will not give him pain or trouble and would not change (hopefully) or ever be diseased.
When we are through with changing, we are through with living. Growth is the only evidence of life. Anything that no long grows, or reaches out for change is now ready to be cast away and has become irrelevant.
For change to happen we have to endure discomfort and at times injury to our personal egos and a disruption of our comfort states. Someone once prayed to God to give him the serenity to accept the people that he could not change, the courage to change the one he could, and the wisdom to know that it was him. Our only hope and security is in our ability to change, follow our cheese and keep growing.
Principles
Everything is governed by principles. Any fight that we have with time tested principles always results in personal injury and at times irreparable damage. Time is a dressmaker that specialises in alterations. However, the timetested principles of dressmaking will always endure from generation to generation, although materials, patterns, trends, tastes and cultures may change. The unfortunate thing is that often people do not really change – they simply change their costumes and recreate their crises. All crises can be traced to violated principles.
Choice
Whatever happens, there is one thing that we never lose – the power of choice. Life is perhaps 5% what happens and 95% our choice about what happens. There can never be any progress so long as we think that someone else is accountable for our lives. We have to come to the full conviction that we are where we are because of the choices that we made in the past. If we want different experiences in the future we have to choose different paths. Choice always assumes responsibility. Lack of choice is at the centre of thinking like victims.
What made us successful in past rarely keeps us successful. Choices of the past brought us this far; unless we can choose differently we can never expect to go any further. This is because problems can never be solved by the same consciousness that created them. We have to rise to a new level in order to improve the quality of our decisions. Exposure limits choice, arrogance maims it and self-deception warps it. If the thoughts and choices that we make at fifteen are the same ones that we think and make at forty five years, we would have thrown away thirty years.
Saint Augustine once said: “if you would attain what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.” Only as much as we are willing to change can we grow. Only as focused as we are willing to pursue greatness can we seek out principles. Only as desperate as we seek God can we find Him and only as deep as we look can we see and only as much as we dream can we ever be bigger, better and greater.
You need to be a member of InternationalDanceCommission to add comments!
Comments