In the previous post, I referred to "the starfish story". Here it is. A young boy and his grandfather were walking down the beach. It was a beautiful afternoon and the tide had pulled backed leaving hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand. The boy began to run around, picking up the starfish and throwing them back into the water. His grandfather laughed at his efforts and said "Jimmy, why do you run about so. There are hundreds of starfish and you are wasting your time. You can’t possibly make a different here."
His grandson stopped, looked carefully at the starfish in his hand and threw it back into the water. He said "Granddaddy, that may be the case for all of them, but I can make a difference for that one."
Isn’t that the reality of life. None of us will likely change the big picture. There will always be hunger, war, disfunctional families and illness. However, we can each impact those around us a person at a time (or a customer at a time…). When added up across all of us, the needle begins to move.
That reminds me of the story a cab driver told me. When we were cut off by an SUV, the cab driver quietly said under his breath “An ant can kill an elephant.” I asked what that meant, and he said that when he was a child his grandfather would provide encouragement by stating that an ant can crawl into an elephant’s ear and kill it.
Will be careful around ants!