A favorite fable of mine

When it comes to workign to chaneg the world for the better I often encounter people who tell me that there si nothign that can be done becuase the scale of the problems are too large for any individual to have an effect.

I often tell this fable in response;

A wise man was taking a sunrise walk on the beach after a storm. In the distance he caught sight of a little girl who seemed to be dancing along the waves. As he got closer, he saw the little girl was picking up starfish from the high tide line and tossing them gently back into the ocean. "What are you doing?" the wise man asked. "The sun is coming up and the tide is going out; if I don't throw them in, they'll die." "But little girl, there are miles and miles of beach with starfish all along it; you can't possibly make a difference." The little girl bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it lovingly back into the ocean and with a big smile said. "Made all the difference in the world to that one, sir!".