In a popular
motivational fable by an unknown author there was once an old man who had a
habit of walking along the beach every morning.
One morning when he went to the beach he discovered there had been a
strong storm the previous night that had washed thousands of starfish up onto
the beach.
Then at a distance, he
spotted a young man dancing along the beach. How odd the old man thought to
himself; the beach is littered with soon to be rotting starfish and this young
guy is dancing? So he ran up to him to
see why he was dancing. As he got closer
he saw that the young man wasn't dancing at all but instead was reaching down
and picking up starfish and very gently throwing them back into the ocean.
The old man asked him,
“Good morning! What are you doing?”
The young man replied,
“Throwing starfish into the ocean!”
“Why are you throwing
starfish into the ocean?” the old man asked.
The young man replied,
“The sun is up, and the tide is going out; and if I don’t throw them back in
the ocean they’ll surely die!”
“Young man, don’t you
realize that there are miles and miles of beach, and there must be thousands
and thousands of starfish along it. You can’t possibly make a difference!”
The young man listened
politely, then bent down and picked up another starfish and gently threw it
back into the ocean and said, “It made a difference for that one!”
The old man paused a bit
and contemplated the enormity of the task and then bent down, picked up a
starfish and gently threw it back into the ocean....
