The Thingamajig Poem by Robert R. Railey

The Thingamajig

By coincidence, my childhood home was located next door to a train yard, and one day while playing outside I just happened to overhear one of the workman tell another that a train was coming in and that they'd better switch on the thingamajig so that the incoming train could be guided onto a sidetrack
The device in question was a very cleverly designed piece of equipment: for not only did it have a lever that could be moved up and down, but also from side to side; and the tool was specifically used to align a third rail with an adjacent train track which would allow the incoming train to be switched over to another track
To me, that one singular learning experience from the past has come to represent more than just a figure of speech for it has become a metaphor for change
And as the years passed, I decided that my primary goal in life was to learn how best to get along in the business world and: and then to also learn how to interact with other people; for in my opinion, the schools that I attended had failed to teach us how to think for ourselves
Yet in all honesty, I would have to admit that the leaders of my church tried their very best to prepare us for adulthood by showing us how to depend on a power greater than ourselves
Though when I was much younger just the thought of having to ask someone, or even some unseen power, for guidance on how to live my life on a daily basis just didn't seem quite necessary or even logical to me
Hence from then on, I became convinced that the secret to life was to learn how to perfect my skills in the art of business by not only reading all of the motivational books in the library, but by also attending as many business seminars as possible
Yet during those early years in business I also learned that it was important to work closely with some of the more experienced people in my chosen vocation just so I could learn how to master some of the tricks of the trade
And so all throughout the next several years I became as knowledgeable of my industry's products as humanely possible; but I had also become frustrated with my apparent lack of success
For during those early years in business my record was bleak and spotty, to say the least, but then eventually it became apparent to me that the main reason that I was experiencing so many up and down cycles in business meant that I was still doing something wrong
At the time, however, the frustration was absolutely devastating, and it almost drove me crazy: until, that is, when my mentor told me that what I needed the most was to sit down and then to make a list of all my character defects and shortcomings; but then while doing so one of my defects practically jumped off the paper at me
It was then that I discovered that for the better part of my life I'd been carrying around a negative attitude which had almost certainly been one of the main reasons for my lackluster performance in business
And so expressly because of that one spiritual awakening, I have begun to feel as if I've been re-born; and so nowadays, I am much freer from my old negative self than I ever have been