Two tales

Why bother?

A successful business man was taking a a vacation on a beautiful island and as he was walking along the beach he chanced to see a man standing in the water fishing.

Stopping to watch he became intrigued by the fact that the man cast away his rod after catching just a fish or two.

Following the fisherman, he got into a conversation and asked the man what he planned to do next. The reply was "go home, clean and cook the fish and go to sleep". But why said the businessman, there is still so much time left, don't you know that if you put in more effort you could catch more fish?

"And then?" asked the fisherman.

"Catch more fish you can sell them and make more money was the answer, with that money you could perhaps buy a boat, hire someone to go with you and catch even more fish"

"And then?" asked the fisherman.

"Why, you could make more money, buy more boats, hire more people, eventually even build a factory to process the fish"

"And then?" asked the fisherman.

"Well after 20 - 30 yrs of hard work , when your business is thriving you could sell it for a huge fortune"

"And then?" asked the fisherman.

"And then you can retire, retire, live on an beautiful island like this, fish.

"I do that already" replied the fisherman

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The Starfish Story
Original Story by: Loren Eisley

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”