Ardoch Program

THE STARFISH STORY.....

A friend of ours was walking down a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked along, he saw a woman in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that she kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the ocean.

As out friend approached even closer, he noticed that she was picking up starfish that has been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, she was throwing them back into the water.

Our friend was puzzled. He approached the woman and said, "Good evening, i was wondering what you were doing".

"I'm throwing these starfirsh back into the ocean. You see it's low tide now and all these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If i dont throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen".

"I understand," my friend 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 realise this is probably happening on thousands of beaches all up and down this coast. Can't you see that you can't possibly make a difference?".

The woman smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and she threw it back into the sea, she replied triumphantly,

"Made a difference to that one!".

Story adapted from "Chicken soup for the soul"