So two little things happened in the last two weeks: one, I'm going to be trained as a bartender. And two, I bought a 'Color Your Own Tarot Card' Kit for two dollars.

Both of these are opportunities but both presented themselves differently. I asked to be bartend, got approved through the chain of command and immediately poured hustle into securing the new position. It's not a new career for me, but it's definitely a new job. It's a part-time job I've always wanted to try, and I'm glad to cross it off my list.

There's a few things I want to do in the future, two of them I'm quite certain on: I want to get my doctorate in sociology and I want to own a bar. Now, granted I haven't bartended before. And I may hate it! So owning a bar might sub out for a coffeeshop or a teastore. 

The opportunity to become trained as a bartender is an active opportunity. I actively had to seek the opportunity, demand it and prove why I deserved it.

On the other side, me stopping at a two dollar clearance bin and picking up a Color Your Own Tarot Card collection provides a passive opportunity. I put in two bucks (nothing to cry over), and I receive a tarot card collection. You don't even have to color it in if you want to. 

But what's the problem here? You might already see it! In order for me to become a tarot-card reader, in order for those tarot cards to become colored, I have to work at it. I have to physically color the cards, learn the cards and use the cards.

Opportunities may come in passive or active forms, but in order to create action or change, you must become active. 

Those tarot cards didn't have to come home with me and I certainly don't have to be coloring them right now. Coloring these cards has been not as relaxing as I thought it was, but it's definitely something to keep me busy if I feel like I need something to do while I watch an episode of Law and Order SVU. 

You might be passively asked to become a bartender. But unless you actively accept the role, actively work hard in the role, you might find that opportunity is taken away. There are many ways we come across the right set of circumstances, but there's only one way to succeed, and that's by acting.

I talk a lot about opportunities on this blog. But anyone who knows me knows that I try any opportunity presented to me.

And who knows, maybe in a month or two I'll have colored my tarot card set and I'll be ready to give you a reading.

One door closes and another door opens; the phrase is practically biblical advice passed down to encourage people that failure or the unexpected isn't negative or finite. Rather it's the start of a new beginning or journey. 

But I've kind of adapted this classic line and gave it a Hribar spin: one door closes and a window opens instead. 

First off, how many doors can a house really have? Especially if we're only going to consider doors which open outside the house in the first place. Let's be real, if we are closing and opening doors within the house, then we're really not changing or evolving. We're choosing similar patterns of behavior, repeating and perhaps redressing like that plastic table that doesn't really work but we use it anyway because you need a table for beer pong. 

Windows take the house's perimeter and mesh it with the world around the house. There's always plenty of windows in a house, each facing a different direction and perhaps a different environment. Unlike some doors, windows are forced to see change (the change in weather, the change in the community, the change of view).

There's also something rather committal about going through a door. The 'door/door' metaphor implies that you're walking through this new door as if every opportunity that walks up to you is going to click or stick. But in reality, somethings what we need in life is the idea of an opportunity (e.g., I like the idea of Chinese takeout, but maybe I'll pick up Chipotle instead). Granted, life is a bit more then food (OR IS IT?), but sometimes we need to know what we don't want to do in order to know what we want to do. If we 'walked through every opportunity' then we might be wasting time through projects or prospects that don't appeal to us. 

But with windows, it's different. You don't even have to open a window to see what's going on outside the window. You can open the window, but you can just stand there by the open window. Heck, you can be creative and peak your head out of the window, all from the comfort of your own house. Maybe you're just not ready for the door, maybe you're not ready to walk. Maybe you just want to see what's out there first.

I give the advice of 'a door closes and a window opens' because it throws people off (I remember using the advice on my own mother who contemplated the thought in a gas station, Thelma and Louise style). People don't expect a window to be in the classic metaphor. But it points to the fact that life isn't predictable. You may want a door but life might hand you a window. But let's face it: we've all climbed through a window and used it as a door.

So this blog is my version of opening a window.

Many people have suggested that I start a blog, but it wasn't something I heavily considered. But now I'm here, slowly pouring my husky frame through the window. A door closes, a window opens, and a twenty-something adventurous creative guy falls out of it.