The Catalyst

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2015

Can you visualize your life as a guy or a girl from the moment you are born till the time you get married? At the risk of attempting a generalization, here is what it looked like for most of us. You spent the initial few years as a baby followed by a decade or more of schooling. You would’ve been around 18 years by the time you started with your college life which added another half a decade or slightly more in many cases.

By your mid 20’s you may have started with a career and after a few years your thoughts grew into having a family of your own. At this point, I want you to take a step back and look at your life again. If all went well, you would’ve now completed a quarter of a century. Many people would’ve been part of your life till now. But who were there as a constant presence throughout this 25 long years of your life? I’m assuming that it won’t be inappropriate if I say it was your parents, siblings and a few rare friends whom you had from your childhood.

All of these people, needless to say, are your well-wishers. They’ve seen you grow, identified your potential and many a times guided the paths you took as well. You may have followed their advice and now enjoy a comfort zone you’ve created between you and them. The picture is pretty rosy. But it comes with a price. The price of being complacent, being self-satisfied! Neither you nor they may have an insight of what more are you capable of. The comfort zone has a dubious distinction of blinding you from the obvious.

The moment you decide to step into a family life of your own, that’s when this comfort zone gets shaken up. The magnitude of this tremor is directly proportional to the speed with which you could absorb the change. If this person, whom you invite to share your life with, is relatively a new entrant, he/she has a clear advantage of not having a baggage of knowing you and thereby being ignorant of your comfort zone. You’ll be surprised to see how this helps your future together.

Your spouse could start asking a lot of questions about yourself, some of which is bound to make you uneasy. It is not their fault, neither is yours. It is because when you are in a comfort zone, anything outside is literally uncomfortable. There could be questions on your choices of work, habits, interests and many more. Be mindful that your ‘new’ loved one is only trying to find a meaning to your decisions till date. In fact they may find a lot of untapped potential in you, which neither you nor your loved ones who were with you for the last few decades could’ve ever found. It is important that you do not resist a change if you can’t justify the resistance. You are quite simply getting exposed to a catalyst. A catalyst for your own good and your loved ones too!

Who is a catalyst from a people perspective? Ignore Chemistry for now. Google says, ‘a catalyst is a person or thing that precipitates an event’. So if your loved one can be a reason to trigger changes for good in you by identifying your hidden potential, isn’t that a good thing? It is interesting to note that most successful people you see around would’ve done something drastically different to make them what they are today. They all have possibly one thing in common. It is a realization that you need to break the shell of your comfort zone, get out of your contented mode and open up yourself for more challenges.

Remember, a catalyst is a change agent and a change could bring out the hidden treasures buried deep inside you. Love your catalysts and may them help you forsake your comfort zones and bring lots of challenges and happiness to your life and everyone around you.

May the good God bless you all!