A man was walking down the beach and noticed that there were thousands of starfish all across the sand that had crawled out of the ocean due to the red tide. Although the water had cleared, the sun was taking its toll and the starfish were drying up and dying. As the man continued to walk down the beach, he noticed that another man walking in front of him was bending over every now and then to pick something up, and each time that he did he got a little closer. Finally, the man caught up with the other fellow and asked what he was doing. The man said that the starfish were dying in the sun and that he was putting them back in the water. “But there are millions of them. What kind of difference do you think you can make?” To that, the man bent over and picked up another starfish, tossed it into the water and said, “Well, I guess I made a difference to that one.”
Each of us has the ability…no, the obligation…to make a difference in the lives of others. So often we want to pat ourselves on the back when we do something special even for our own children. However, true success comes from making a difference in someone else’s child…or more importantly, in a child you don’t even know. I call it planting shade trees under which you’ll never sit.