Is it worth it?

When we see just how much needs doing in the world and realise just how little our puny individual efforts count for, we - well, I - often wonder, "Is it worth it? What difference will my efforts make?" Next time you think that, it might help to remember this story.

It was early in the morning and as I walked east along the beach the sun was just creeping over the horizon. The beach stretched for miles and I was the only person walking the hard-packed sand as the tide receded. Or so I thought. As the light grew stronger, I noticed another person on the beach far ahead of me. Whoever it was was walking towards me and seemed to keep bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the sea. The gap between us narrowed and I saw that the man approaching me was indeed bending down to pick things off the sand and throw them into the sea. Eventually we were close enough for me to see that he was picking up some of the starfish left behind by the falling tide. I asked him why he was doing that.

'The tide is still going out,' he answered, 'and the sun is coming up. These starfish will be dried out and shrivelled by the sun unless I return them to the sea.'

'But the beach is miles long,' I pointed out. 'There must be hundreds of thousands of starfish and you can only rescue a very small proportion of them. What is the point of that? What difference can it make?'

The man bent down and picked up another starfish.

'It makes a difference to this one,' he said as he threw it into the sea.