For children, - Moral stories about making a difference (Starfish Story)

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We are by nature moral story tellers. Our brains are wired to tell moral stories.
Think for a moment about how many moral stories you have already told today: to your spouse or partner; to your children; to your colleagues; or to your friends. Moral stories are the currency of our lives; they are the measure of our days. We are nothing without our moral stories, because moral stories encapsulate our fears, our failures, our dreams, and our desires. We understand and make sense of our own lives by telling moral stories about ourselves and others. Moral stories are the touchstones for our emotions.
Moral stories have a way to connect and stay with us like nothing else ever could. They tap into our inner feelings and make us part of it. The reason why we remember moral stories is because they pull on our emotional strings. They make us think and they make us feel. And it's that feeling that helps us remember.
A moral story, not data or facts, shake us up and make us see other points of view through characters we can identify with. And if a story is really captivating, we continue to think about it, turning it over in our minds, savoring it. Maybe we even begin to think about things a little differently from the way we had thought about them before. Moral stories have the power to move us emotionally; stir us intellectually; and teach us, too.
The following moral stories about making a difference will never fail to inspire us, regardless of how insignificant it may seem in the eyes of others.
Once upon a time, while walking along a beach, an elderly wise man saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young boy, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water.
Elderly wise man came closer still and called out, "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
The young boy paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean."
The elderly wise man smiled and said, "I must ask then, why are you throwing starfish back into the ocean?"
To this, the young boy replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they will die."
Upon hearing this, the elderly wise man commented, "But, young boy, do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"
The young boy listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, "It made a difference for that one."
We often think we are too insignificant or too unimportant to make a difference. We couldn't be further from the truth. So, can I encourage you to take the time to do something that will make a difference to someone else's life and it doesn't have to be much and they don't need to know. Just take a moment, do something special, the universe will know and that's enough.
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do. - Helen Keller
One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something. - Henry David Thoreau

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