I heard this fable the other day and wanted to share it with you and record it for my future reference:
An old man was walking along the beach when he spotted someone far in the distance throwing things into the ocean. As he got closer, he noticed that there were thousands of starfish strewn along the shore. As he got closer still, he saw that the person was a young boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean. He approached the young boy and inquired, “Young man, why are you doing that?” The boy answered, “I’m trying to save the starfish, they’ll die if they are out of the water too long.” The old man smirked and replied, “There are thousands of starfish here — you’re wasting your time and energy, it’ll never make a difference.” The boy picked up another starfish and stopped. He looked at it with compassion, and threw it back into the water, defying the old man. Then he looked up at the old man and said, “It makes a difference to that one.”
I think what made it so powerful to me was that it reminded me of the experience I blogged about yesterday.
