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My cheese keeps moving and I don't like it. I get used to my cheese being in a certain place and that's where I expect it to be when I look for cheese.

Change is an inevitable part of life, but still, most of us resist it. One of the best books I ever read is Who Moved My Cheese? (by Spencer Johnson). The story is a fable about living in a maze and spending all of your time running around looking for, finding and eating cheese. Cheese is the metaphor for what we want to have in life, such as a good job, meaningful relationship, enough money, etc.

I live in a maze. I think we all do. The hard part about living in this maze is that the place they keep the cheese keeps changing. When the old cheese moves, you have to get off your butt to find new cheese. But it can be scary, as change often is. It involves taking a certain amount of risk.

It is often easier to remain stuck in old patterns and mind-sets even when they don't work anymore and even when they are making us miserable. We are comfortable with what we know. We become attached to the way things are, even if they are bad for us.

This is happening to me. The way I feel about my stuttering has been changing, and I didn't recognize it right away. Its not Swiss cheese with neat little holes anymore. No, its a block of cheddar cheese now. I never used to like Swiss cheese, but I grew to like it and am now comfortable with it. I make sandwiches all the time with Swiss cheese. Now, I have to get used to a block of cheddar cheese. Its hard to cut, the slices don't always come out even and sometimes they crumble and fall apart. Like my stuttering. Sometimes, it falls apart.

The cheese in my relationship is also changing and moving. The more I grow and reach new personal heights, the more my partner wants me to stay the same. It makes me crazy sometimes, and I give in to it, because the alternative is scary. But one of these days, I am going to wake up and find that all of my old cheese is gone, and I will have no choice but to change course in the maze and discover new cheese. I think I will like new cheese. I think I am even testing new cheeses right now, sometimes without even realizing it. As a good friend said, its gives me hope.

What will it be? Feta? Goat? Brie? Something that I haven't tried yet, that I know for sure.

What do you do when your cheese moves? Do you get off your butt and look for new cheese? I don't think we have a choice we have to look for cheese in new places.

Learn more about this author, Pamela A Mertz.
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