I recently saw a video of Eckhart Tolle teaching at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. One of the stories he shared was of another teacher, Byron Katie, who was visiting some patients in a cancer ward. She stopped in a chatted with a very depressed woman who had a massive tumor on one of her legs. The prognosis wasn’t good; she was probably going to die.
Byron Katie asked her why she was so depressed and said, "I don’t see what the problem is."
Needless to say, that angered and depressed the patient even more. "Here," she said, throwing off the sheet, "Look! My right thigh is twice the size of my left!"
"Oh, " Byron Katie said, "Now I understand. The problem is that you think that your right thigh should be the same size as your left!"
And for the first time in months, the woman with the cancer laughed.
Isn’t it interesting how insignificant most problems shrink when viewed in just the light of the present moment without that odd imaging we call the "future?"