Old Hat New Hat

In Launching imbue, and continuing my roll as Clyde Common Bar keep, my time has been spread very thin.  First of all,  I still feel lucky to have a job of any kind, but how many jobs can one person have?  On any given week, I'm wearing the hat of "Daddy Day-Care", Clyde Common "Barkeep", Imbue "Sales Rep", Oregon Bartender Guilds "Head of Industry Relations", and Sarah's "Husband".  (ok...I am not really putting "quotes" around husband)

I had a slight revelation this week while putting the boys to bed and reading one of my favorite childrens' books, The Berenstain Bears "Old Hat New Hat".  A few years ago when Zander was learning how to talk and read at the same time, this was the very first book that he could go through, read all the words, and pronounce everything correctly.  In spending so much time with this book I began to truly love the simplicity of the wording and the fundamental meaning behind it. 

In life we are always wearing a hat of some kind, and we learn to change these hats on a moment to moment basis.  I've known this to be exceptionally true in the Culinary Industry.  Working in a restaurant is closer to doing Theatre than it is having a job.  We occupy our day with small business, education, care taking, or recreation, then we change hats and become a performer for 40-100 people a night.  The changing of these hats have a psychological impact on you.  That's why at the end of the night, it's difficult to take one hat off, and put on another. 

In the last few months, with the hats I've been changing, I've been struggling to keep up with all the changes, and last week I realized I had too many hats on my rack.  And in the end, knowing that the old hat is the most comfortable, and the new hat needs to be broken in, prevailed in my manor of thinking. 

Pay attention to your hats.  When you put new one on, wear it long enough to know weather or not it fits.  When you take one off, make sure that it's in a safe place, because you may need (or want) to come back to it later.