There was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his exercise. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one. Approaching the boy the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the boy replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “There are tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. What difference does it make?”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled, and said, “It made a difference to that one!”