You've probably heard the story about the guy walking down the beach throwing starfish back into the ocean when thousands of them are lying there after a huge storm washed them up onto the shore.
Well, if not. Another guy goes up to the dude saving the starfish and says, "There are thousands of them lying all around. There is no way you can even save more than a tiny fraction of them. Why are you even trying? What you are doing won't even really matter."
The man saving the starfish turns around, looks at the other man before picking up another starfish. He holds out the starfish so the other man can see it and he says, "I know I can't save all of them. However, if I save this one, to him it will make all the difference in the world."
Then he pulls back his arm and throws the starfish as far out into the water as he can before he reaches down and picks up another one.
So, now that you have that in your head. Consider this, but in reverse. A man loses his very expensive cell phone at the bottom of Lake Travis, never to be seen again. Right? Wrong. There are probably thousands of cell phones at the bottom of Lake Travis, or the remnants of them anyways, along with sunglasses, beer cans, wallets, etc. And yet, a man named Brian was scuba diving one day when he came across a very expensive cell phone at the bottom of Lake Travis. He could have left it there. He could have let it dry out and then used it for himself. Why not? Finders keepers, right? And hundreds of people lose their cell phones to Lake Travis every year.
The answer is simple. Brian cares more about others than he does himself and he recognizes that regardless how many phones go for a swim in Lake Travis, the one he found mattered to somebody.
Can you imagine what this world would be like if everyone was like Brian or the man throwing starfish back into the sea? What's more, what if every passerby had stopped to help that man throw starfish back into the sea? Would his efforts have seemed so inconsequential then? What a world it could be.
So Go Forth friends and Recognize Good. Along the way, don't forget to stop and help throw the starfish back into the water as well.
