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In 2012 I wrote about Jody Cundy. He was a Paralympic cyclist who was disqualified in the kilometre race after four years of effort for 59 seconds worth of racing.

He’d won every single race in the lead up to the Paralympics and didn’t turn a wheel in the race. He went mental…shouted, swore, threw his drinks bottles around, it meant a lot. I saw it, I was there.

He turned up again four years later in Rio and raced in the World Championships and just carried on. Nobody wrote much more about Jody Cundy after London but he just carried on.

Sometimes, the people I see trying to make a difference, trying to do the right thing (or so I believe it to be) sometimes they get a moment in the limelight, a moment in the sunshine and people see their face and know them and say “thank you” and hold them up as an example for others.

But most of the time, the vast majority of the time, they don’t.

The guys who run The Friary in Nottingham, a day centre for the homeless in West Bridgford, nobody knows who they are really, nobody pays attention.

The dental professionals who have just been at a leper colony in Africa or the people doing the day-to-day stuff for Bridge2Aid or a thousand million other people who decided to do the right thing but not to be famous – no one hears about them.

Deciding to work at something over decades, to make a little difference to your tiny corner of the world isn’t even a vocation and it isn’t even brave.

The reason people do this is as follows.

Two choices –

1. Accept the nihilism, accept that the world will never change and no difference can be made and therefore just cut your throat and die.
2. Carry on, try your best and try to make it better.

In option 2 you can look at yourself in the mirror and say that you did your best. You can tell that to your kids too.

People see it as well, they know it, even if they don’t say anything. It’s fun, you meet great people that think the same way you do and sometimes one of those guys, or very rarely you, get a little minute where the sun shines on you through the clouds.

It’s never a reason to do it, it should never be expected and you should always realise that it will pass in an instant but it shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you think are right.

Blog Post Number: 1947