Once, a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day.
Off in the distance, he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and the beach. As the man approached, he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand, washed up by the tide. They were dying in the sun.
The person was picking them up, one by one, and throwing them back into the ocean.
The man walked up to him and said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference."
The person looked at the man. He stooped down, picked up one more starfish, and threw it back into the surf.
He turned to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one."
When you are facing massive, systemic problems—like a difficult job market, organizational chaos, or an overwhelming transition—the scale of the problem can paralyze you.
You cannot save everyone. You cannot fix the entire system. But you don't have to. You just have to focus on the one small action you can take today. Shrink the world, and make a difference on a micro-scale.