"I awoke early,just before sunrise,
to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day.

As I moved through the morning dawn, I focused on a faint,
far away motion.

I saw a young girl, bending and reaching and flailing her arms, dancing on the beach,
no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.

As I approached, I realized that the girl was not dancing to the waves,
but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide,
stopping now and then to pick up starfish and then standing,
to heave it back into the sea. I asked her the purpose of the effort.

"The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves",
the girl replied. "When the sun rises, they will die,
unless I throw them back into the sea."

As she said this, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond eyesight.
Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the young girl's plan became clear to me.

"But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever hope to save," I countered.
"The sun will be up soon. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference."

She paused briefly to consider my words, then bent to pick up a starfish.
She threw it as far out as possible.
Then, turning to me, she simply said, "I made a difference to that one."