We are all very familiar with this famous starfish story which has been the beacon of light for a great many Jedi Knights...
Once an old man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the old man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.
The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the young person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the young person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The young person looked at the old man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the old man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"
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Master Choco found an extended version recently during his course of work in Simpleville...
A young and promising lady, having heard the famous starfish story, was inspired to do the same thing by coming down to this same beach to save starfish...
She met the same young person moments after coming onto the beach...
To her surprise, the young person walked pass a starfish by his feet, but didn't do anything more than taking a look at the starfish, and walked on...
However, just after taking no more than a few steps, the young person stooped down and picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean...
The young lady was quite puzzled at the seemingly irresponsible act that the young person just committed... Wasn't this supposed to be the young person who had the right sense to know that it matters to every starfish along the way? Hadn't he inspired a great many promising young people like herself onto this beach and do this same magnanimous act? Why then had he decided to walk past that starfish and not do anything with it?
Being rightous and enthusiastic and feeling a wee bit of injustice, she decided to confront the young person...
"I'm kinda new here, but you saw that poor starfish, didn't you? Why did you give it a miss? I'll pick it up and throw it back to the ocean if you aren't going to do it..."
And without any further hesitation, she went towards the starfish which the young person missed.
As she approached that starfish, she realised that this starfish was a little different from most of the rest... It was sticking onto a flat piece of rock on the beach... In fact, it was sticking so tightly onto the rock that if she were to exert more force to peel it off, she might hurt the starfish or even kill it... The rock was too big and too entrenched into the sand that she couldn't have had the strength to unearth the rock and throw it together with the starfish back into the ocean either...
She looked up at the young person again, and saw him picking up some other starfish and throwing them into the ocean...
She went back up to him...
"So you knew that that starfish was stuck onto the rock?" she asked.
"I've been walking along this beach everday for the past 6 years... I know almost every starfish there are on this particular stretch of beach...
"There are serveral other starfish that are like that one... They are not ready to return back to the ocean yet...
But I'll come back to them when they are ready... And at the meantime, I can't just wait for any particular one to be ready and ignore those which are drying up and are ready to return to the ocean..."
What the young person didn't tell this promising young lady was that he was churning when she came to him questioningly with a look of doubt in her face... But quietly, he was hoping that this young lady would join him in his mission to save all the starfish on the beach... One at a time, not giving up on those which may not be ready at any point in time...
