Random acts of kindness

In one hundred occasions there may be ninety-nine when you don’t have a choice. But there is one when you can choose to do what you think to be good and right. That one decides who you are, with no excuse. This reminds me of a story*:

The sand of the Black Sea coast was covered with myriads of starfish washed ashore by the storm, doomed to be soon dried out by the sun. Nasreddin picked them up patiently and threw them back, one by one, undisturbed by the hopeless immensity of the task.

A passer-by wondered and asked him,

“Why are you wasting your time? It’s all Allah’s will. Don’t you see that all you can do doesn’t count at all?”

“It counts for me, and it counts for this one,” answered Hodja, tossing yet another starfish into the tide.

* (The original was written by Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) "The Star Thrower"1978, Times Books, Random House)