Making a Difference...

My dad used to tell a story about a man who was walking a deserted beach at low tide. He thought he was quite alone until he saw a figure moving in his direction some distance off. Every few paces the stranger would stop, bend down, and then toss something into the surf. The man was puzzled, but kept watching as the lone man walked and threw things into the ocean. When they got close enough the man asked the stranger, "What are you throwing into the water?"

"Starfish," the stranger replied.

The man looked around and for the first time noticed that starfish littered the entire beach where he had been walking.

"You see," the stranger said, "when the tide goes out, the starfish are left on the sand and if they can't get back into the water, they die."

"But there are thousands of starfish here. You can't possibly make a difference," the man said, sweeping his hand out over the starfish strewn beach.

The stranger just smiled and reached down and picked up another starfish and threw it into the water.

"It made a difference to that one," he said. And he continued walking the beach, and making a difference as he went.

Many times we think that the things we do go unnoticed or unappreciated. There are those times when we do something, and we stop and think about how big of a difference we are really making. It's a struggle to go on in life when we feel like we can't make a difference in the world.

What we forget is that to make a difference in the world, we need only to have an effect on one person. If you can change one life today, you have changed the world.

In this new year, I hope to remember that great change can begin with one single person, and that person can be me, if I want it to be. With an encouraging word, a smile, a hello, a handshake, a hug, you can change someone's life. And ultimately, you can change the world.