A man is galloping at breakneck speed on his horse and appears as if he is going somewhere important; on a mission of some sort.

Another man standing along the side of the road shouts, ‘Where are you going?’ and the man on the horse yells, ‘I don’t know, ask the horse!’

A short story about rushing

 We have developed the habit of running and rushing through our lives and our days, harried by time. We multitask, we rush around vainly trying to ‘accomplish’ everything that we think we need to do, and in doing so, we lose touch with the present moment and with life itself. If we are not present in our own lives, we aren’t really alive. We are like zombies running around lost in our own little universes. We have developed what Thich Nhat Hanh describes as ‘habit energy’: the habit of running around with our bodies going one way and our minds somewhere else. This is a terrible way to live and robs us of our most precious gift—the little time that we do have to experience the joy of being alive.

A man was walking along a beach in a well-known tourist destination, and there were literally thousands and thousands of stranded starfish that had been swept in on the tide and soon to die. He noticed a man in the distance who was throwing them back into the water, one at a time. As he approached the man he exclaimed, “But there are so many. You can’t possibly make a difference!” The man simply threw another starfish back into the ocean and said, “Made a difference to that one.”

A short story about making a difference

Sometimes when we are working to improve the lives of others or even working to improve ourselves, we may not immediately see the results of our actions and good intentions. But, we must let go of the outcome of our actions and trust that sometime in the future our good deeds will have a positive effect and come to fruition in a manner that we cannot foresee.