There are numerous times when I have vowed to press on with my foot to the floor only to find myself stalling at each bend. It’s an easy thing to take a long view on the destination and make good initial progress, pumped with adrenaline and inspiration. Many fall at the finish unable (or unwilling) to make the last bit of ground but more die in the middle. Corpses pile high in the side streets and cul-de-sacs of life. Unmentioned to the starters and forgotten by the finishers, they are an embarrassment and only leave an unpleasant smell. What do you say of someone who aborts when the job is half done, for whom there is no return on the investment – a write off – a liability – collateral damage.

Life is an opportunity but while for some it’s a revolving door, for others it’s a quarter light. The vista may be the same but some need to stand closer to the window to see it. I’m not speaking of those who don’t realize their potential but manage to get through life without causing any visible damage. I’m speaking of those who just run out of steam, the bright starters who take wrong turns or take on one too many hills. I’m thinking of myself, stalling at yet another bend and wondering how the gearbox has managed to survive, not that I was a bright starter.

If life were simply about bright starters, good finishers and urban casualties it would be a sad story indeed. We enter the world naked and exit alone but no one passes through without their life touching someone else’s. No one can say they were successful entirely on their own. To be alone is a measure of failure on someone’s part. We look up to the successful for inspiration and try to learn from other’s mistakes in order to make the finish line with dignity and a sense of achievement. We hope that our children take the right path and make the most of every opportunity.

I can’t see the finish line from here and it all started so long ago. I seem to keep heading down cul-de-sacs but there always seems to be a path at the end leading to another way. The 23rd Psalm is the favourite of many – “He makes me lie down in green pastures” – but when you walk through the “valley of the shadow of death” the path is hard to follow. Its not a route you would choose to take – failure and loneliness are heavy weights to carry – but it’s the way of the common man and the lot of many who fall by the wayside. The lost don’t look to the successful; they find strength in the humanity of fellow strugglers, the frequenters of cul-de-sacs. They are inspired not by those who are ordinarily exceptional but who are exceptionally ordinary.