One day a man was walking along the beach when he saw a girl. He watched as the girl reached down, picked up a starfish from the sand, and threw it into the ocean.

”What are you doing?” asked the man.

”I am throwing starfishes into the ocean”, said the girl. ”The sea has washed them up onto the beach. If I don’t throw them back before the sun comes up, they will dry up and die”.

”But the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of starfishes”, said the man. ”You’ll never throw them all back. There are too many. You can’t possibly make a difference”.

The girl listened politely, then picked up another starfish, threw it back into the sea, and said, ”I made a difference to that one”.