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I will prepare, and one day my time will come. – Abraham Lincoln
Case in point Camille Vasquez, the breakout attorney who represented Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against Amber Heard. She’s 37 and according to the collective legal community, she was given some unprecedented opportunities during the trial to cross-exam witnesses and make closing arguments. Those responsibilities are typically given to partners. A week after the trial concluded, Vasquez became a partner. Some speculate it was to retain her because others were attempting to lure her to their firm. So it goes when you do well with a high visibility opportunity!
What we’ve not seen are the hours of pursuing the opportunities. Law school. Study groups. Bar exam. Research. More research. Grunt work. More grunt work. Wondering if your time will ever come. Doubt. Fear. More time spent wondering if this will ever be what you dreamed it would be. And then it happens. Maybe out of the blue. Maybe not. But your time comes.
Some aren’t prepared. Or they fail.
It happens.
We’re hardcore OU Sooner fans. The hazards of being born in Oklahoma. This isn’t football season, but weeks ago the Women’s College World Series (softball) happened. After OU won their way to the championship series, Oklahoma State University fans watched their team lose both semi-final games to Texas, thanks in part to a moment of errant defensive play that resulted in multiple runs by Texas. Even as an OU fan I couldn’t help but feel for the players involved in the OSU mishap. Their time had come and they couldn’t all handle it successfully.
We all know this firsthand. It’s been true in our own lives.
Was it Texas? Was it the bigness of the moment? Or was it life? Or something else?
Likely it was all of those things – and many more things. But I know what it wasn’t. It wasn’t the universe. It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t “meant to be.”
Being unprepared won’t work out well. But being prepared is no guarantee for success either.
