I thought about the rather corny starfish story when I was driving home after clinic today. You know the one. It goes something like this:
A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked, he could see a young boy in the distance. As he drew nearer, he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water. Time and again the boy kept hurling things into the ocean.
As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach. One at a time, the boy was throwing the starfish back into the water.
The man asked the boy what he was doing. The boy replied, “I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, so they don’t die.” The man replied, “But, you can’t possibly save them all. There are thousands on this beach. This must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy looked down, frowning for a moment. He then bent down to pick up another starfish. Smiling, he threw it back into the ocean and replied, “I made a huge difference to that one!”
There is a piece of me that has a hard time getting beyond concerns about why thousands of starfish are on the beach in the first place. I also wonder what harm a forceful toss can do to a starfish and how good intentions when attempting to help others can cause even greater problems. But, today, I thought about the boy.
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