Want to make a difference in the world – Throw a Starfish!
Everyone wants to leave their mark on this planet when they are gone. We all want to be remember in some way.
But how will you be remembered?
It is easy to think, “I’m just one person. What can I do?”
Maybe that thinking will change after reading this short story.
A man was walking along a beach, reflecting on his life. He had always wanted to make a difference, but no matter what he tried, he wound up feeling as though he was spitting into the wind.
Suddenly, the man heard a loud crunch, and looked down at his feet. Right where he was standing, and for as far as the eye could see in either direction, there were thousands upon thousands of tiny starfish washed up onto the shore by the ocean waves and tide.
The man continued walking, thinking to himself about the apparent cruelty of the ocean. After all, those starfish hadn’t done anything wrong! Yet before the day was done, they would be dead, washed up on the shore and left to die.
After a time, the man came across an old woman standing at the ocean’s edge, throwing starfish that had washed up on the shore back into the sea.
When he asked her what she was doing, she said she had always wanted to make a differenece, and she had decided that today was a good day to begin.
The man loked from her to the thousands upon thousands of starfish that lay dying along the coastline and said, “For every starfish you throw back into the ocean, three more wash up onto the shore! How can you possibly be making a difference?”
The woman looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she picked up another starfish and threw it back into the sea. “Made a difference to that one,” she said, and she smiled the most beautiful smile the man had ever seen.
Excerpt from “Change Your Life In 7 Days” by Paul McKenna
Remember this quote
“To the world, you may be just one person,
But to one person, you may be the world.”
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