One morning a man was walking down a beach that was covered in dying starfish. The tide the
night before had been especially strong and thousands of starfish had been washed up on shore,
too far up for them to make it back into the water by themselves. The man shook his head as
he trudged along thinking what a shame it was that all of those starfish would die on the beach.

He came upon a boy who was throwing starfish back into the ocean as fast as he could. The boy
out of breath and it was obvious that he had been at this task for a while. "Son," the man said, "you might
as well quit. There are thousands of them. They are washed up all over the beach as far as you can see.
There is no way you can make any sort of a difference."

The boy stopped, and held up a starfish to show the man. As he tossed the starfish into the ocean he said,