The wisdom of many hats

A cousin of mine once owned two differently branded gas stations located across the road from each other. I remember him describing the situation many years ago, saying how there was no such thing as brand loyalty in the gas station business. He smiled as he explained how he'd spend time working at one gas station, cross the street, replace his Brand X hat with his Brand Y hat, and go work in the other gas station. And to customers, what would it matter? Probably the most important attribute of a gas station to a potential customer is that the station is located on the right side of the road, not the left.

There's great benefit to being able to change your hat to suit the situation you're in, and yet I think this is a lesson that is lost on many people. Of course, I'm not really talking about actual hats; I'm referring to ideologies. But talking about hats is more fun.

I think of myself as a person who has many hats, and when discussions degrade into disagreements and disagreements degrade into frustrations, some people find it exasperating that I'm “difficult to pin down.” Welcome to the multiple-hat club. It turns out that life is not an Oxford-style debate; you're allowed to change sides whenever you want and argue different points of view.

I graduated from high school, like most people, having only one hat, which I wore much of the time. Back then the world I saw had many simple problems, and those problems required nothing but simple solutions, and wouldn't you know it but my one hat happened to cover most of those solutions. Then I found myself a little older and sitting in college classrooms and frequently trading my current hat for a different hat. The hats were all better constructed than the flimsy one I wore as a teenager, though in hindsight I now realize they were a bit lopsided and awkwardly fitting, but I found the whole hat-swapping experience exhilarating. College is a fun four-year hat-trying-out period in one's life.

A while after college, though, it occurred to me that the whole point of those four years wasn't to trade one's existing hat for a new, better one; rather, the point was to acquire new hats without giving up one's existing hats. And so I bought back all the hats I had ever owned and even went looking to acquire a few totally new ones, and I'm proud to say that now I own some strange and even, well yes, rare hats. I love my hat collection.

Many people feel differently. They look at my extensive hat collection and see a waste. “Where's your hat loyalty?” they ask. “Surely one of these hats fits most comfortably or is the best looking. Why not just stick with that one hat?” My answer is that a hat's usefulness is dependent upon the situation, and I want the hat I'm wearing to weather my current situation optimally. I don't see any way of getting this result but to own many hats and to don the one that fits best at any particular moment.

Though, if you're a one-hat kinda person then I'll probably find it difficult to convince you to try out some new ones. After all, hats take time to break in, and most hats are going to feel downright uncomfortable and alien compared to the one you've been wearing for a long time. And although I'm wont to say that every hat out there has some potential value for nearly everyone, experience has shown me that some hats are indeed suited for a wider range of situations than are other hats. But again, the point isn't to own one best hat; it's to wear the best hat for the occasion.