h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was recently asked the question: does the individual has any effect on what goes on in the world today, or are all we just just run roughshod over by power? Is there anything we can do in life, short of controlling our own destiny and love and personal relationships, that will have any noticable effect on the course of world events?

Here is what I think.

I work in the voluntary sector, and the motto of the organization I work for is just that: make a difference

It may be that the difference you can make is only a small one. No matter.

I have been mulling this over, and my mind keeps coming back to a video I watched many, many years ago. I can't remember much else about it, although I vaguely recollect it was one of those videos they occasionally used to show us in school to avoid having to think of a topic for an assembly. But this one scene has stayed with me ever since. Let me tell you a story.

There was a beach, and scattered all across this beach were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of starfish which had been washed up and left behind by the tide. They lay on the beach, drying out in the sun, gasping, dying.
Some people walked past the beach, and looked at these starfish with pity and compassion, commented that someone should do something about it, and then walked away.
A little boy came to the beach, and looked at the starfish with pity and compassion. Then he bent down, scooped one of them up in his hands and slowly made his way down the beach, carefully picking his way through the other starfish, to place it safely back in the sea.
Someone called after him, 'But there are hundreds of them, you can't save them all. Why are you even bothering? What difference does it make?'
The little boy turned back, and said, 'It makes a difference to this one.'

That's kinda the point I'm trying to make. No matter how small and insignificant you feel, if you can make a difference to even one person, then the effort was worth it, and it is always important.

Picture a pebble, rolling down a hill. It is tiny, insignificant, no one is going to notice it. Then that one tiny, insignificant pebble dislodges another, just like it. Now there are two pebbles rolling down the hill together. Each of the two dislodges another, now there are four; the four each dislodges another, now there are eight ... and then, before you know it, you have got an avalanche, huge and powerful. No one can fail to notice it. Yet it would not have happened if it were not for that tiny, insignificant pebble, rolling down the hill.

One person can make a difference.