President Jimmy Carter was an honorable man whose second act in life — after one term in the White House — has served as an example for us all for more than 40 years.

It remains to be seen if some of his followers as POTUS will live up to Carter’s post-political career and life.

Can you imagine George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden teaching Sunday school or rolling up their sleeves to build homes for Habitat for Humanity?

Neither can we.

But Carter did just that after Ronald Reagan’s decisive victory in 1980 made the Plains, Georgia, native a one-term president.

Carter took office in post-Watergate America, when the country needed less of a politician and more of a man its citizens could trust. The U.S. got that in the earnest Carter, an Annapolis graduate and former Navy officer.

In another time, Carter’s presidency might be remembered differently, but America was already hurting by the time he defeated Gerald Ford. The 1973 Arab oil embargo and the death spiral of the U.S. steel industry had already sucked America into an economic and social malaise, which Carter eventually acknowledged in his famous — and perhaps infamous — July 15, 1979 speech.

In it, Carter said America faced a “crisis of confidence” and “national malaise.” Journalists at the time took Carter’s message as an admission that he was in trouble because of the energy crisis, inflation and the loss of more than 100,000 steel industry jobs, including those in Western New York and Pennsylvania.

If Carter had any hope of reelection, it was probably dashed when Iran took 53 U.S. diplomats and citizens hostage on Nov. 4, 1979, and held them for 444 days. Carter signed off on an ill-fated rescue attempt on April 24, 1980. One Iranian civilian was killed in the attempt and eight U.S. servicemen died accidentally when a helicopter crashed into a transport aircraft.

Iran finally released the hostages on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated after his decisive victory over Carter in the 1980 election.

Often overlooked was perhaps one of the most successful undertakings by a modern U.S. president, when — in 1978 — he mediated and kept alive peace talks between Egypt and Israel. Carter hosted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David until the long-time enemy states agreed to a peace deal that is still in place today. Carter should have won the Nobel Peace Prize then, but finally earned it in 2002.

Carter didn’t just ease into retirement nor did he fade from public view after his 1980 election loss. Despite being blamed for much of what went wrong for America in the late 1970s, Carter didn’t walk away into obscurity.

Instead, he jumped into one of the most impactful second acts of anyone who ever occupied the White House or any top political office in the world.

Carter spent years taking up hammers and nails and building homes for those in need with Habitat for Humanity and advocated for the organization long after he could no longer help physically.

Carter also spent decades fighting the existence of Guinea worm, which infects people who drink unclean water. The worms can grow 3 feet long inside the body before breaking out in painful blisters. The disease infected 3.5 million of the world’s poorest people before Carter launched an eradication program in 1986.

According to the Associated Press, the Carter Center trained volunteers who trained villagers to filter water and report infections. The parasite is now on the brink of extinction, with just 13 infections reported last year.

Jimmy Carter rose to the highest U.S. office in the land, but although he held it for only one term, he showed that a man’s impact on his nation and the world can continue long after others determine his political usefulness is no more.

RIP, Mr. President.