Sometimes life seems larger than a Hollywood movie and problems seem exceedingly impressive and imposing.
When we sit down in front of a movie screen, we may see all sorts of images—beautiful oceans, car chases, and even burning buildings. But whatever we see on the screen is not really going on at the moment, even though it may seem to be. And those flames from the building are not burning the screen or touching it in any way. If we wanted to put out the fire, we wouldn’t throw a bucket of water up at the screen! To stop the flames we would have to turn off the source of the image, the movie projector. Then the flames would disappear, and they couldn’t just leap up onto the screen again or stick around, because they have no power of their own. Turning off the projector definitively removes the image, no matter how frightening.
Sometimes, like the projected movie image, people think a problem is happening right before their eyes and so they try to solve it by taking a pill, opting for a procedure, or implementing a change in diet or exercise. And this may produce varied results. But doing those things is a bit like taking a bucket of water and throwing it at a movie screen to get rid of the fire. What appears as a physical problem is really mental.
