Opinion piece by Barbara Lee
I was sitting on the sofa, turning the ring around my finger again and again. Watching the stone catch the light, trying to get used to the thought: I was engaged.
The days before had been so intense I could barely process them. My partner had proposed. And on that same day, a professional opportunity I'd been dreaming about for years had landed in my lap — out of nowhere, pointing exactly in the direction I'd always wanted to go.
If someone had been watching my life from the outside, they probably would have said: what incredible luck. What unexpected twists.
I thought the same thing at first. But sitting there with my ring, I kept coming back to one feeling: none of this was actually unexpected at all.
The moments themselves were surprises, yes. I didn't know when the proposal would come. I didn't know when that career opportunity would finally find me. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became — the last few years had been leading here all along.
The road that brought me here
My partner and I have been in a loving, stable relationship for years. We didn't become the kind of couple who can picture a future together overnight. It took shared experiences, hard conversations, compromise, laughter, and all the ordinary, unglamorous moments of building a life side by side.
The same is true of my work. For years, I've been putting in more than I strictly had to. Learning, growing, trying new things, taking on projects, building connections — not because anyone promised it would pay off, but because I believed it was the direction I wanted to go.
And yet, somehow, I could never really enjoy the journey. Because the whole time, I was quietly drowning in anxiety.
I was afraid my partner didn't take our relationship as seriously as I did. That one day he'd realize I wasn't who he wanted. That I was the only one imagining a future together.
At work, I was terrified that no matter how much energy I poured in, I simply wasn't good enough. Not creative enough. Not talented enough. Not the kind of person who deserves opportunities like these.
How fear stole my joy
Looking back now, it's almost strange to see how little I was living in reality — and how much I was living inside my own fears. While my relationship was happy, I was bracing for it to fall apart. While I was growing professionally, I felt stuck. While I was building the life I'd always wanted, step by step, I was constantly waiting for it all to collapse.
The most striking realization was this: that anxiety wasn't just uncomfortable. It was actively stealing my joy. It took the beauty out of the process. I was so convinced something would go wrong that it never even occurred to me to think: what if it actually works out?
And it did work out. Maybe that's the lesson worth carrying forward: I don't have to automatically write the worst-case ending to every story. Sometimes it's worth leaving room for the thought — what if everything goes well?
Not because the world is always fair. Not because hard work always pays off. Not because every story has a happy ending.
But because there is just as much evidence that things can succeed as there is that they can fail.
And if something doesn't go the way I hoped? That doesn't have to be the end of the story. Just a stop along the way. And after that — who knows. Maybe something better. Maybe something completely different. Maybe, in the end, it all works out anyway.
