The Starfish Boys

One morning at dawn, an elderly man went for a walk on the beach. Up ahead, he noticed two young boys stooping down to pick up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally, catching up with the boys, the old man asked what they were doing.

The boys answered that the stranded starfish would die immediately unless they were returned to the water.

"But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish, " protested the man. "How can what you're doing make any difference?"

One boy looked at the starfish in his hands and then threw it to safety in the waves.

"It makes a difference to this one, " he said.

- Adapted from an old folk story

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