A
friend of ours was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he
began to see another man in the distance. As he drew nearer, he noticed the local native
kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again
he kept hurling things out into the ocean.As
our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that
had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the
water.
Our friend was puzzled. He approached
the man and said, Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing.
Im throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, its low tide
right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I dont
throw them back into the sea, theyll die up here.
I understand, my
friend replied, but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You
cant possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And dont you
realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast.
Cant you see that you cant possibly make a difference?
The local native smiled,
bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he
replied, I made a difference to that one!