IT doesn’t take a genius to recognise that inaction is much easier than actually doing something.

Making a decision and following it through requires use of mental willpower and even physical effort whereas doing nothing can be achieved without either.

‘Go with the flow’ is the modern way of describing the process of just letting things happen without making any attempt to change the course of events.

There might be good reasons why some of us don’t act when we could or should. But it’s no good beating about the bush – more often than not there can be no excuses.

Inaction is down to one of two things – sheer laziness or totally irrational fear.

Two East Lancashire stories in the last week have prompted this outburst by pricking my conscience. And I am forced to admit being guilty of both laziness and cowardice.

For many years my wife has regularly given blood and she carries a kidney donor card.

If you are fortunate enough to be in good health there is absolutely no logical reason why anybody shouldn’t grab the opportunity of possibly enabling others to avoid pain, suffering or even death.

It’s obvious…and yet over the years I’ve always put off actually doing something positive. It’s never somehow been ‘the right time’ to give blood or get a donor card.

Fortunately there are thousands more like my wife than me. But there are not enough of them.

That’s why Blackburn mum Parveen Awan, for example, has helped to launch a major new organ donation campaign to alter the situation which sees the UK with one of Europe’s lowest rates of organ donation.

She was driven to act by the needs of her own son, Faizan, who has born with a condition that caused his kidneys to fail.

Two transplants later – one of them from his dad, Khalid – and Faizan is 23-years-old. Parveen meanwhile, is spearheading an NHS-organised effort to persuade all of us to respond positively and do something.

The other inspirational figure was mother-of-two Julie Patefield who died aged 38. She was diagnosed with leukaemia last September – a condition whose sufferers can benefit enormously thanks to transplants of bone marrow from ‘matching’ donors.

A month after her diagnosis the ‘Help Julie’ campaign was launched and as a result of it more than 3,000 potential bone marrow donors have come forward.

Each one of them, with no pain and suffering to themselves, could potentially save someone else’s life.

As Robert Spiegel, a spokesman for the Anthony Nolan Trust, said: “When someone like Julie needs a transplant, she and her family would have had enough on their plate. But to go out and talk to people about joining the register is remarkable. That was fantastic and will be a worthwhile legacy.”

Years ago like many others I laughed at the classic Tony Hancock episode in which he only gave blood in the belief that it was going to be kept in a bottle for his own personal use should the need ever arise.

The truth is the sketch worked because Hancock’s pathetic anxiety mirrored that held by many and allowed us to laugh at ourselves.

And that’s pretty shameful, isn’t it?