One morning, just before dawn, a man woke early so he could watch the sunrise over the ocean.

As he walked along the beach he came across a young girl who seemed to be doing something peculiar. She was picking up starfish and throwing them into the sea – one after another. He asked her what she was doing.

“The tide washes up all these starfish and they can’t get back by themselves,” she said. “They will die in the sun if I don’t throw them back into the water.”

The man looked up and down the beach at the thousands of stranded starfish. He couldn’t help telling her, “but there are too many starfish to save before sunrise. Why bother? You won’t make much of a difference.”

She paused for a moment, then picked up another starfish and threw it as far as her slender arm could manager. With a satisfied grin, she turned to the man and simply said, “I made a difference to that one.”

The man stood in silence, considering the girl’s youthful wisdom. Then, with a smile of his own, he reached down for a starfish… and tossed it into the sea.