One morning an old man walked along the beach. A big storm had just passed. As far as the eye could see, the shore was littered with starfish.
From a distance, the man noticed something unusual. A woman picked up a starfish, threw it back into the sea, and repeated with the next one.
He approached the woman.
“Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” he asked.
“When the sun gets high, unless I throw them into the water, they will die,” The woman replied.
The man scanned the many miles of beach.
“But there must be tens of thousands of starfish. Sending a few into the water can’t possibly make much of a difference,” the man said.
The young woman knelt, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. She smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one.”
We don’t have to be overwhelmed by the many problems of the world. We can start by acting on a small problem in front of us.