Sweet Dreams Are Made of Cheese

Saturday Stories

March 16, 2019

By Jonathan Aquino

March 16, 2019

I

The great 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan first arrived in the Philippines on this month 498 years ago, on March 17, 1521, on an island named Homonhon in what is now Samar. I'm across the bay in Cebu as I write this, and there is a famous tourist spot here called Magellan's Cross, a wooden cross in a small pavilion behind the Santo Niño Cathedral. The marker says it was planted by Magellan on April 21, 1521. I came here 492 years later, on February 13, 2013, so I didn't meet him in person. Yet I thought a lot about Magellan – and some of the other legendary explorers like Vasco De Gama and Christopher Columbus.

II

I think it takes great courage to embark to the unknown, and it takes even greater courage do it while many are saying you could not – or worse, should not. In every great venture, like when Magellan went out to sea or when the Apollo 11 went to the moon, there are those who will say that many are hungry, so why waste money building ships? They have a point, but they also miss a more significant point. Life is about trying to help others – but it is also about following our dreams.

III

And there is something else that everybody knows but some find hard to accept – that life is a constant change. You could stay where you are, or you could go to another place and go through different experiences, but either way, everyone and everything around you will change – even you. But not all of us are always ready. In Dr. Spencer Johnson's classic fable "Who Moved My Cheese," a man named Hem has found a gigantic block of cheese in the endless maze where they all live, and he was so happy that he found it at last. He made a new set of routines that revolve around the cheese. I think this is understandable because it's perfectly natural to want to have security in life.

IV

But as time went by, the cheese began to run out. Things are changing right before his eyes but he could not – or would not – accept it. He thought of it as the symbol for his success, the reward for all his hard work, and he has defined himself by his possession of the cheese. Then, one day, there was no more. Hem would go home at night and return the next morning, hoping the cheese would come back, but it never did. He told himself that somebody must have taken it. "Who moved my cheese?" he said. He said that people like him are special, and, therefore, are entitled to the cheese. His friend, Haw, said they should leave and look for new cheese. Hem refused. He said he would stay and get to the bottom of this. He asked Haw to stay, and both of them could wait until the cheese comes back.