How do we know when we have achieved our full potential? What holds us back from going further? What are the limiting factors that keep us from continuing to grow and achieving greater things in our retirement years? Let’s explore this thought for a little bit.
Some of the more overused words and overused phrases in the business community seem to be “change” and “change management”. We talked about it all the time in the business community and now that we are retired or are facing retirement we are talking about it again, but possibly in a more personal manner. I would venture to say that most of us have an area we consider to be our “comfort zone” and the only way we are going to consider moving from this zone will be if it occurs in a very deliberate and controlled manner. Some circumstances may dictate a forced change, but hopefully we are currently in a position where we can endeavor to control our destiny, so to speak.
Perhaps the greatest limiting factor to change is fear – fear of the unknown. Change will take us out of that comfort zone and if we don’t know where it is taking us we can become quite uncomfortable. I would venture to say that a close second limiting factor is the erecting of artificial barriers we place around ourselves to avoid having to make a change.
I am reminded of the age old story about elephant handlers training circus elephants. These handlers take these young elephants when they are small and weak and chain them to iron stakes in the ground which prevent them from breaking away and running free. This allows the trainers to keep them close, work with them, and prepare them for their routines. When these little elephants mature into huge, powerful elephants capable of lifting a ton or more with their trunks, they remain restricted by those same small iron stakes. When they are more than strong enough to pull the stakes out of the ground, they don’t even try. Even if you remove the chains from the stakes but leave them attached to the ankles, they remain within their usual perimeter of movement. They remain bound by their old boundaries and don’t venture beyond. If elephants are able to think, possibly they are thinking “I can’t go any farther, so why try?”
A similar scenario happened on the farm where I grew up. Low voltage electric fences were used as means to control any wandering activities of the animals. While initially they would test the boundaries, eventually you could turn off the low voltage electricity but the animals would not venture close to the fence. This story was adapted from The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry, available from Floodgates of Heaven Bookstore .
As we venture through retirement, do we artificially limit ourselves? When we are young we look at everything in a pretty broad fashion. At that time we saw the world as a huge cornucopia of opportunity. As we went through life with our careers or raising our families, we saw some of the fruit of the cornucopia starting to disappear. When we reach retirement age, it appears that all that is left is what is in the tail end of the cornucopia basket. We don’t observe the trees of opportunity that have grown up as a result of seeds falling to the ground from the basket.
Perhaps now we can utilize the time we used to spend writing grant proposals or RFP’s to writing that novel or short story we never seemed to have time to complete. Maybe we had an eye for detail and spent our working years in the accounting or audit fields. Can this same eye for detail be refocused to apply that trait or skill to photography or painting or sculpting?
There are so many stories of folks that have used this chapter of their lives to do fantastic things. My own father’s retirement hobby was creating quilt tops. After retiring from farming, he created over 300 quilt tops. Maybe this isn’t amazing in itself, but considering he began his first one in 1934 and didn’t finish it until after he retired shows that a spark of a dream or goal remains active. For my father, he didn’t let the barriers of life deter him from fulfilling his dream and expanding upon it. Utilizing a treadle sewing machine that was reported to be at least 100 years old and 30,000 postage stamp size quilt blocks per quilt, he created an amazing array of quilt tops – all after he retired. Many small community organizations benefited from his talents by using donated quilts for fundraising activities.
Rocking Chair Wisdom challenges each of us to find ways to expand our horizons and to not allow artificial barriers to stifle our ability to lead a rich and full life where we can truly enjoy life after retirement. Let’s stretch our comfort zones.
If you would like to share how you are enjoying or are planning to enjoy your life after retirement please let us know at Rocing Chair Wisdom. Contact us at RockingChairWisdom@gmail.com . We would love to hear from you and if you allow us, to share some of your experiences and perhaps photos on the web site we are developing at: www.Rocking-Chair-Wisdom-Life-After-Retirement.com .
