You Can Make A Difference

This has been one of my favorite stories for a long while, and I chanced upon it yesterday:

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. 

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a young boy who seemed to be walking along and doing something with the starfish. As he approached he saw that the boy was picking up starfish and tossing them back in the ocean. The man walked up to the boy and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves; When the sun gets high, they will die.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it back into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “I made a difference to that one!”