Each morning as the tide receded, a young boy would walk along the
beach picking up starfish from the drying sand. Abandoned by the
water, the starfish were sure to die in the growing heat. So the boy
would toss each starfish he came upon back into the cool and calming
waves.
A passerby shook his head at the boy’s slow pursuit and grunted, "Don’t bother, child. There are thousands of those starfish. They go on for miles. You cannot possibly make a difference throwing them back into the ocean."
But the boy picked up another starfish, looked at it thoughtfully and remarked as he tossed it back into the sea, "It made a difference to that one."
