You may have heard this one, but I find that it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it every once in a while. First let me tell you the story, and then we can talk about it.
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)
We all have the opportunity to help create positive change, but if you’re like me, you sometimes find yourself thinking, “I’m already really busy, and how much of a difference can I really make?” I think this is especially true when we’re talking about addressing massive social problems like tackling world hunger or finding a cure for cancer, but it pops up all of the time in our everyday lives, as well. So when I catch myself thinking that way, it helps to remember this story. You might not be able to change the entire world, but at least you can change a small part of it, for someone.
They say that one of the most common reasons we procrastinate is because we see the challenge before us as overwhelming, and that a good way to counter that is to break the big challenge down into smaller pieces and then take those one at a time–like one starfish at a time. And to that one starfish, it can make a world of difference.
“A single, ordinary person still can make a difference – and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.”
— Chris Bohjalian, Vermont-based author and speaker
Related Post:
“Changing Course: How America Got Lost, and How We Can Find Our Way Back Together“
EventsForChange 
November 9th, 2015 at 7:07 am
[…] or industry’s supply and demand figures” but every little bit counts, right? Cue the starfish story. Maybe they just needed one more Auber-Gene Simmons to push them to clear one more natural field […]
November 15th, 2015 at 12:50 am
Reblogged this on A View from the Other Side.
November 22nd, 2015 at 11:33 am
[…] about saving one starfish at a time, and the difference that made to each starfish that was saved. You can read that story here. And the starfish story started me on a journey back through time to a much different life, where my […]
November 23rd, 2015 at 11:00 am
[…] short in expressing appreciation in ways that are most meaningful to each recipient. But as in the old story about the person saving one starfish among an infinite number of dying starfish, each time I […]
November 25th, 2015 at 2:25 am
Thank you very much for sharing this wonderful story. Truly no effort is wasted.
December 3rd, 2015 at 6:11 pm
Thank you! Because you posted this story you have sparked a flame in my life and gave me an extra nudge to keep going.
December 31st, 2015 at 2:02 pm
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January 6th, 2016 at 6:04 pm
[…] short in expressing appreciation in ways that are most meaningful to each recipient. But as in the old story about the person saving one starfish among an infinite number of dying starfish, each time I […]
January 22nd, 2016 at 2:40 am
[…] than 97% of the folks who didn’t set goals. I still hear it. In fact I hear it more than the starfish story (For those speakers that never attribute it, have the decency to do so. It’s from The Star […]
February 11th, 2016 at 4:37 am
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March 5th, 2016 at 5:58 pm
I chanced upon your site while Googling for the boy and starfish story. So glad I did. 🙂
March 26th, 2016 at 6:30 pm
Thanks so much, Rachel!
April 16th, 2016 at 8:29 am
[…] My mum once told me: Renee, even if you devote your whole life to sweeping the floor, you will only ever be one person sweeping the floor. You might as well train a hundred people to sweep the floor properly, then maybe you’ll get bigger, more significant patches of clean floor. I guess this is the Asian parent equivalent of the starfish story. […]
April 18th, 2016 at 10:29 pm
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June 4th, 2016 at 9:10 pm
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June 13th, 2016 at 3:44 pm
[…] But that one gun COULD be the next one used in a mass shooting. I mean, we have all heard that story about the boy with the starfish. I can’t eliminate guns. But I can keep this one off the […]
June 23rd, 2016 at 10:16 am
[…] Still not sure how to wrap your brain around all this oneness? This super short story about a boy and his starfish is for you. […]
June 28th, 2016 at 10:15 pm
Oh my – I have never heard / read that story….I love it ❤️. It brought tears to my eyes, and it really makes you think.
Thank you for posting that. 🌟
Erin
July 7th, 2016 at 10:31 am
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July 24th, 2016 at 12:32 pm
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