Break that box that is preventing you from reaching your full potential. Retirement is a lifestyle of exercising freedom in life. What surrounds you determines what you grow into. In fact, it actually affects the size you become. We are only limited by the environment we choose to plant ourselves in.

When I qualified for eighth grade in 1996, my parents decided to move me from Chawama to Libala High School. Just the idea of getting on a bus and passing through town as I went to school was enlightening. This was because I had now learned how to negotiate the bus fare with the conductor. I also had to sharpen my skills as regards taking care of my things or just the way I carried myself generally. I had to improve my official communication because my circle had grown bigger now. It was not only Anthony, Patrick, Abraham, and Humphry. I had now met Wanga Mando Kabwela, Kaliwe Chokani, Chikobela Henry, and a lot of others with different backgrounds from assorted neighbourhoods.

In the meantime, after high school, I joined the Zambia Air Force, which provided another avenue to grow in different disciplines. The soft side of me became a bit tougher. Right now, my initiative is better than before my attestation. Not forgetting the ability to read situations and making sure that emotions are controlled.
As I went on to pursue my law career, I learned how to be patient. The endurance of sitting at that library table to prepare and conduct proper research The statement “the devil is in the details” only made sense when I had to sit for my bar exams. I mean, to date, I really have to go through things before I give the go-ahead or append my signature. I expanded in terms of my reading ability or capacity to retain things.

Meanwhile, retirement is opening yet other doors. Once that formal arrangement of receiving that monthly salary is gone, one has no option but to let the survival instincts kick in. That desire to make it has been activated. I am learning that the box you may cage yourself in will limit how fast or how big you become as an individual.

I am a dog lover, so I bought myself a Pitbull. One thing I have noticed is that since we have given her enough food, she has grown so big that she scares us, even if she is our own dog. At some point, I restricted her to the dog biscuits from the supermarket. The Veterinarian mistook her for a normal small dog. The environments we place ourselves in determine our growth. These environments may be the neighbourhoods, families, or social places we find ourselves in. As you grow older, you may wish to start changing these environments. For example, some family norms will have to be changed. There is no way the same family can appear on the list of prisoners or get pregnant before they complete high school. There must be something in the environment that may seem to be blocking the expected growth.

Now that you have retired, a good environment may make one expand since they would have enough time to invest in personal businesses. It’s time to weed out that which drains the life out of you. The truth of the matter is that even the crowd around you, whom you call friends, are nowhere close to being your friends. Even some of the relatives who wanted to be in your space are actually there just to benefit from what you can offer. Use retirement to weed out all that drains the life out of you. Once the weeds are gone, it is easy to grow bigger and better. It will be lovely to even use past experiences over the years to mature into some fine wine.

Life does not come to a standstill once you retire. It continues, and actually, depending on where you have settled, you will still need to maintain a certain lifestyle. We did not come on earth to survive. But I came here to live and enjoy. This will only be attained once the growth rate maintained reaches a momentum that will sustain the breath of life.

Never limit yourself to what your eyes can see. Sometimes all you need is to just change the environment. You will be amazed at how much leg room you have outside the cocoon. It is time to change the environment. Kaunda just coined it as going back to the land,” but my interpretation is that our first Republican President was just trying to tell the former employed humans to change their environment to something that would give them life.

The author is a retired officer of the Zambia Airforce and an Advocate. He can be reached via email: [email protected] or Whatsapp: +260 97 9165574