A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent most of his time exploring the sea shore. One day he learned that there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand. The day of the tide the boy went down to the beach and began picking up the stranded starfish and tossing them back into the sea. An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what he was doing. "I'm saving the starfish," the boy proudly declared. When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you young man, but if you look down the beach one way, there are stranded starfish as far as the eyes can see. And if you look down the beach the other way, its the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference." The little boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up a starfish, tossed it out into the sea and said: "I sure made a difference to that one."