I just happened to be on Facebook when I saw it.  (’ve been spending less time there lately, so it was a bit unusual.)  A post about a concert at Carnegie Hall.  On Monday June 25^th.  An unexpected opportunity.

Only a few weeks away.

Why was this unexpected?  Sandi Patty was singing. And she retired from touring last year.  So I was surprised to see she was coming all the way from Oklahoma to New York.  I don’t even think she came here on her farewell tour last year.

So now I’m scrambling.  Does Ruth want to go with me?  We’ll have to stay over.  And I’m headed to Los Angeles the next day, so will have to fly from New York.  If Ruth goes, she’ll have to take the train home by herself.

Ruth wants to go.  Miss an opportunity to see Sandi Patty and a wonderful choir at Carnegie Hall?  No way!

First we make sure there are still tickets available.  Yes!!!  And they’re General Admission, so we aren’t stuck in the third balcony.  Now that we have tickets, I look at flights to LA and the train schedule.  Ruth cancels all kinds of stuff.  She makes sure someone can help her husband, as he’s recently had surgery and may need help.  I use hotel points to get a free hotel room.

The day of the concert comes.  We’re all set.  We’ve done everything that it took to get there and are prepared to have a wonderful time.  What an opportunity!  What a gift!

In a way it seems like the opportunity just dropped in our laps.  I just “happened” to see the posting on Facebook, and we took it from there.  We had no problem getting tickets, and we didn’t have to pay for our hotel.

Yup. Dropped in our laps.

Sort of.

We both had some pretty significant rearranging to do with our schedules.  We looked at all sorts of lodging alternatives before I came up with the idea of using hotel points.  We had to figure out what to do about my car, since I’d be flying from New York and back to Connecticut.  There were a lot of logistics – on short notice.

So yes, it was an opportunity.  But it wasn’t a no-brainer.  In fact, if we weren’t both such big fans of Sandi, and thought we might get another chance to see her live, we probably wouldn’t have done what we did.  ‘Cause it took a lot of effort to make that opportunity happen.

That’s so often the case, isn’t it?  Opportunities come disguised as work, challenges, or problems.  Taking advantage of the opportunity means saying no to something else.  Trading one thing for another.  And hoping you made the right decision.  Hoping the opportunity is as good as it seems.

In this case, we both knew we weren’t going to miss this if we could help it.  And we didn’t miss it.  We got our tickets, took the train, and went to the concert.  Opportunity called and we answered.  And had a great time.

Have you ever had an opportunity that you couldn’t pass up, even though it took a lot of effort to make it happen?  Have you ever had an opportunity that came disguised as work, a challenge, or even a problem?  Have you ever had a situation where you weren’t sure if you were making the right decision about what looked like an opportunity?  Leave a comment to share your story.

P.S., Watch for Part 2 on Tuesday