A man was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset, and as he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance.
As he grew nearer, he noticed that the other man was a local native, who kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the ocean.
Time after time he kept bending down, picking something up, and hurling hurling it out into the ocean.
As the man approached even closer, he noticed that the Mexican was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and one at time, he was throwing them back into the ocean.
The man watched the Mexican for what seemed ages, and was puzzled at this behavior.
He approached the Mexican and said, “Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing”.
“I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean”, the Mexican replied. “You see, it’s low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen”.
“I understand”, the man replied, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”
The Mexican smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and he threw it back into the sea.
As he did so he said to the man, “I made a difference to that one!”
I rather like this simple story. It shows that although we might think that alone we can’t help to save everyone who has a problem, or that alone we can’t help to prevent something like climate change, a huge topic right now. But if we realize that together, if hundreds, thousands or even millions of people all play just a small role, we can help to change the world.
Together we can help to improve the lives of thousands of people. Together we can make our world a better place to live in.
Please help to spread the word, and if you can do so, help someone, or something today.
Image used under a Collective Commons License from https://www.maxpixel.net/Goa-India-Holiday-Starfish-Sand-Beach-Vacation-1097786
