A couple of days before the world Ironman championships in Kona a few years back, Tim Don (one of the greatest athletes that the UK has ever produced and ignored) was riding one last bike ride before he competed for the championships as the current world record holder (Don had, that year, completed an ironman in under 7 hours and 50 minutes!).
He was hit by a truck. He broke his neck.
If you have a little bit of time to watch an inspirational documentary lasting 28 minutes, it's here.
Two choices:
1) Get busy dying
2) Get busy living
I will try not to spoil the ending for you, but it’s worth remembering that in Tim Don’s crisis no one else was in crisis.
The triathlon world continued without him, as did his personal life, as did the world around him.
That is a very different psychological position to be in and is almost certainly much harder.
The thing about the current situation we find ourselves in, is that we are all in this together. We all feel the same pressures, the same pains and the same problems associated with this.
Some of us will get hit early and some of us will get hit late, but no one will be left untouched.
It doesn’t matter where you choose to find your inspiration, whether it be a documentary about a triathlete with a broken neck, or stories about front line workers in the NHS who are risking their health or whether it be children who are overcoming terrible diseases in the midst of madness, it doesn’t matter, you can get it from wherever you want.
You can gain strength though, from the fact that you’re not fighting recovery from a broken neck when everybody else around you is fit and well and healthy.
If you weren’t happy or satisfied before this crisis, then you won't be happy or satisfied afterwards.
But if you were and if you were able to gain inspiration from small things in your life, then you’ll be back there again before you know it.
Sometimes it’s hard to see that it's worse for other people and there are other people who have it harder than you, but it's almost always the case.
Blog Post Number - 2333
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