One morning a man walked along a beach covered with thousands of starfish that had washed up during a storm; they were now drying in the sun and would die if they didn t make it back to the ocean. Up ahead he saw a little girl picking up the starfish one by one and tossing them back into the sea. As he approached her, he couldn t help but ask, Why bother? There are too many of them. You won t make a difference. The little girl picked up another starfish, tossed it into the water and said, But I made a difference to that one.