They say curiosity kills the cat, but imagine the life of the cat if it never left its comfort zone.

Why have nine lives if you’re just going to spend all of them holed away in your corner under the bed? Some may think the best life is the safest life, where every day, every decision, is carefully calculated, and you only do things you know the certain outcomes of.

I get it. It’s scary to break normalcy and step into a world of unpredictability and uncertainty. Yet, where’s the excitement in life without some risk?

Joining the Catalyst program may have been one of the biggest risks I’ve taken, yet it’s the best decision I’ve made in my life. I know some classmates who were hesitant to join Catalyst because they would be straying away from their carefully curated four year high school class schedule. Instead of staying on the normal track, they’d be transitioning into a separate, completely unknown program.

While having everything figured out early has its benefits, I’ve always believed that you never know anything for sure until you try, and that oftentimes, things change. For example, I always thought I hated tomatoes, and after trying a cherry tomato at the age of 7, I was right. Then, one day, my friends forced me to eat every piece of my BLT sandwich, and that was the day I found out I could actually tolerate the taste of tomato I previously despised.

While I don’t have a personal anecdote from a career standpoint, I’ve met multiple people throughout Catalyst who have shown me that it’s perfectly okay, and actually life changing, to switch and start again. While at Google X, we spoke with Peter Chauvel, who I can say is one of the coolest and most humble people I’ve met. Peter essentially went from thinking he’d be a professional athlete, to studying four degrees in economics and business, to taking some time off and going on a fishing trip, to now being the Strategy and Operations Lead at Google X. At the end of his story, he gave multiple principles he lives by. The two that I saw exemplified by his life were: 1) follow your passion, even if it changes; and 2) trust your gut, take some risk. It may have been difficult for him not to immediately know what he was going to do in his life, but without applying these principles, Peter would instead be finding himself at a tedious investment banking job right now. Without giving himself the ability to hate something he thought he loved, he was able to find work that gave him purpose and joy.

I’ve seen reflections of my guest speakers’ lives in my own journey within Catalyst. Frequently, I get asked why I chose to join the program. For many, it logically doesn’t make sense. When I joined, it was a pilot program. Catalyst was something very new and experimental, and I didn’t have anything tangible to consider when applying. Why would I join a program that no one’s ever done before? Because I had a desire to learn beyond the classroom, and I was willing to take a risk that ended up changing my life for the better. I learned from Dr. Grace Young that passion has a tendency to surpass logic, and that when you really want something, you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it.

I’ve always wanted to live a life in the pursuit of something more: learning more, seeing more, experiencing more. With Catalyst, I’ve been able to do all three. So while it might not have been the conventional option, I took the risk because I knew it would show me how I could shape my life to live every day doing something meaningful and fulfilling.

My time in this program has also shown me that risk-taking always comes with the need to be able to start from scratch, over and over again. I’ve had so many instances throughout the semester where I’ve had to pivot and start over again. For example, Catalyst’s own version of Google X’s moonshot factory. Even this past week, I’ve found myself having to restart the project over and over again, either because my idea was too narrow or because it already existed.

Despite my frustration and the fact that this project is intended to be literally impossible, as of now, I have found a drive within myself and my team to keep pushing forward. Our goal was to change the world, and feeling the most resonance I’ve ever felt with a project, I put everything I could into creating a project I was proud of.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned this semester is that when starting from absolute scratch, it’s okay not to have a clear idea of the final result. The important thing is that you never stop trying your best, and that you always follow your heart.