Of Nuts, Bolts, Switches and Rail Tracks - www.jobsabode.com

Of Nuts, Bolts, Switches and Rail Tracks

Many times we compare our life to things around us, and sadly many people compare themselves with the others around them.

Comparing ourselves with other human beings is deplorable, but, looking for some concurrence philosophically about things around us, is not bad at all.

However, one of those comparisons that I often think about is how much our life is like a rail road track.

A rail track is a path to get somewhere but is filled with nuts, bolts and switches. While the nuts and bolts hold lengths of tracks together firmly, it is the switches that take the train in a different direction. It has a “controller” who views the “big” picture of all the trains moving in the network in the area that he is responsible for and then “decides” and communicates his orders to “switchers.” When the switches are made, the direction of the train to the destination it has to go gets underway.

Much like the rail system our life too, like a rail road track, is a path that we follow made up of decisions. Each decision can take us to an entirely different destination. When we make a decision it can very well affect other things in our lives. When we come to a switch in the track of life, which way the switch is turned will determine the outcome. They are so like the decisions in our life. It is made from the “control panel of our central nervous system – the brain.”

The nuts and bolts are the binders of the several relationships we have @ work and outside, and the switches are the “transactions” we have with the various groups, and the decisions that evolve out of these transactions.

How many times have you made a decision in your life that changed everything?

We can of course make good decisions and we can make bad decisions, and there in lies the real comparison to the rail road track. Many times the decision we make can take our life in a totally different direction that sometimes can never be changed back. Some people who have taken drugs or become bank robbers have found that out from hard experience.

The obvious point of this discussion is that good decisions have that same power to change our lives forever. If we make right decisions, good decisions, then our path of life will take us where we want to go. We can become what ever we want to be, if we want to be. All we have to do is make the right decision and then start down the track of life to achieve it.

How do we learn to make good decisions?

It starts early in our childhood. We develop attributes that are often called "wisdom" or "common sense" as a child. Those things within us that help us make good decisions are also called "good judgment".

The question of course is, how do we develop those attributes of good decision making in our lives?

What do we do if we had a childhood that did not lend it's self to making good decisions?

There are many answers.

Here are just a few:

1. MENTORS: A famous saying of old is, "When the student is ready, the teacher will come". Find people that you admire or who have attributes you would like to mimic. Study their lives. Read about them. If it is possible, arrange to meet them and get to know them. Most people who have become highly successful have mentors that help them. The mentor does not always have to be world famous. They may be someone as great and wonderful as one of your parents or a close friend. Mentors often just come into your life when you need them. Listening to the great minds of the world has had a profound effect on my life. Above all it has given me the desire to be like those I have listened to or read about. When I have a decision to make, I often think of one of my mentors and then ask myself, "Would they do that?"

2. IMPROVE YOUR MIND. Your feelings of self worth have as much to do with making correct decisions as anything else in your life. I know from personal experience that reading good books and listening to educational and motivational tapes can change your life. I seldom ever go from one day to the other without filling my mind with some reading that can spark a thinking inside me. Sometimes even the radio in my car does this work, but I listen to it, mostly to break the boredom of thick traffic. When your mind is filled with these "power thoughts" making correct decisions seems to come almost as a second nature. When your mind is filled with good thoughts, you will have the desire to do the right things, and knowing how to make correct decisions will flow into your mind like a shaft of light.

3. BELIEF: One of the key elements in decision making is belief. Believe that you can do things right. Believe that within you is the power to choose correctly the things that are best for your over all well being and happiness. With that power of belief, you can change for the good. You can make correct decisions most of the time.

4. CHARACTER: You have to stand for something. You have to believe in something. Your character is one of the primary fundamentals within you that help you make correct decisions. If you have no values, then it will be hard to make decisions. If you know what you believe in and what you stand for, then making correct decisions becomes almost a thoughtless process.

5. CONSEQUENCES: This is one of the power principles of life. When we were children we did things that caused us to get hurt or be sad because we did not know the consequences when we did it. As adults, one of the powerful things that can help us make correct decisions is to consider the consequences before we start. Stephen Covey said it so well when he said, "Begin with the end in mind".

1. MENTORS
2. IMPROVE YOUR MIND
3. BELIEF
4. CHARACTER
5. CONSEQUENCES

With these five elements, you can build your power to make correct decisions. If you are having troubles and find that you have made a lot of bad decisions that are now causing you a great deal of sorrow or grief, try applying these five principles in your life. Just start over. You can not change the past. You can only hope for the future. But you have the power to change today.

Rail Road Switches. They are so much like the decisions in our lives. They always lead to consequences and those consequences will either be good or bad depending on the decision we made.

May we always choose the best switch in our doing, as we move along the track of life.

The last aspect is the way the rail track move is parallel to each other from one place to the other covering the length and breadth of geography of any country (at least most). That helps the train maintain a balance and only during bends and curves the tracks are banked (either to the left or the right) one being higher than the other mainly to keep the train on track at any speed. And yes, the speed depends on the solidity of the track. Most hi-speed tracks have a concrete base.

In life too we need to let our “life train” balance on the two track that should run parallel to each other (work or professional life and the personal or family life). We have ups and down, bends and turns in our life too, so, either one of the track will be high or low, to maintain the balance. Lastly, the speed at which you can move your life depends on the solidity based on being fundamentally strong, high on ethics and character etc.

Punch Line for the day: "Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation." Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) American statesman, writer, scientist & printer