What is your starfish?

I have had starfish on my mind lately. Have you ever heard the story?

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

For some time now, I have been thinking about the idea that we all have starfish in our lives.  We make choices about who or what our starfish will be.

I have some friends who have lovely children who sometimes comment on my activities, “You are so busy, look at all that stuff you do!”

My response, “What ???!! I look at all YOU do – how many lives are you responsible for, 24/7?”

That is not to say that people are thinking about starfish when they decide to start a family.  In our case, we started thinking about starfish after we came to the conclusion that biological children would not be part of our lives.

Over the years, we have explored the idea of fostering or adopting children. We have even taken the required class to become eligible to foster or adopt.  Around the time we first took active steps to bring a child into our lives, we both had some significant shifts occur in our respective careers. These changes made us hit the pause button.  


For now, having our own children will not be our starfish.  That said, we do love your starfish!

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