English
The Starfish story
Making a difference one at a time
The starfish
A young man was walking along a beach in the early hours of the morning when he saw an old man who seemed to be hopping around, leaning down to the sand, picking up something, running towards the edge of the water, throwing what he had in his hand into the waves, going back up the beach to get a handful more and so on. Intrigued, the young man approached, and realized that the old man was dedicated to throwing the starfish that had washed up on the sand back into the sea. But there were thousands all along the beach!
The youngster asked the old man: Why are you doing this?
Well, because the tide is going down, the sun is rising, and if these starfish spend just a few hours on the sand in the sun, they will all die.
You must be crazy, responded to young man. There are thousands and thousands of them sprawled out for miles of coastline. You are going to die trying to save all those starfish. And anyway what difference are you going to make doing this?
The old man was silent, picked up another starfish, cast it carefully into the ocean, behind the breaking wave, and then replied: It makes a whole lot of difference for that one!
