Do I have a problem right now?
his question comes from Ekhart Tolle’s The Power of Now (which is on my list of life-changing books). What he says exactly is this:
“When you feel confused or burdened by problems focus on this instant and ask yourself: What problem do I have right now? You will find that there is no problem now. A challenge that requires action, possibly, but not a problem.”
Here’s what Tolle means. He talks about two sorts of time: clock time and psychological time.
Clock time is the actual, practical movement of time. Barring time travel (which will never be invented or we would already be experiencing it, right?), we can never exist anywhere other than the present in clock time. Sure, we can think about future clock time in terms of appointments, plans, deadlines, and goals, but we can’t interact directly with anything in future clock time.
Psychological time on the other hand is how we experience time, where we are mentally. Which most of the time is not here, not now. We are usually ruminating on the past or thinking about the future, neither of which actually exist (in clock time).
Life is full of situations. There are hard situations and joyful situations and everything in between.
But here is the really cool thing about situations: you can always handle them in the present.
And “handle” means one of two things:
Do something.
Accept something.
Let’s take the example of a medical condition that is causing pain. There might be things you can do about that situation right now, like make a doctor’s appointment, take some medicine, or try a new position. If not, then your only task is to accept the physical pain of this very moment. (I have written about strategies for doing that here.)
Problems arise when we think about situations in the future but are trapped in the present and so can’t do or accept anything about them.
The doing part of that equation is more obvious—it doesn’t make sense to worry about whether we’ll be able to get in with a specialist until our doctor actually refers us to one. Though our brains like to worry about the things that will require doing in the future, we can usually catch ourselves in such thoughts fairly easily and come back to the present (“I’ll wait to see what the doctor says first before worrying about that.”)
What is much harder to catch is when we are trying to accept future situations. Let’s return to the example of physical pain. Even it we somehow have total certainty (and this is highly doubtful) that this pain will be chronic for the rest of our lives, we cannot accept future pain in the present moment. It’s impossible. And living in fear that we will be required to do so is utterly overwhelming.
We can only ever experience pain (or anything) one moment of a time. Whether it lasts 20 minutes or 20 years, we will only ever experience it in this moment. And then in this one. And then in this one.
And friends, you can always handle whatever the present moment has to offer.
How do you know? Because you always have. And because no matter the situation, you’re doing it now. And now is where you will always be.
The disconnect between being in present clock time and in future (or past) psychological time breeds fear, worry, and anxiety.
The ability to stay in the psychological present gives you power: power to endure physical pain, to welcome any emotion, and to find peace in uncertainty.
So the next time you feel like things are going wrong, ask yourself “What problem do I have right now?” or the variation that I like, “Do I have a problem right now?”
Then get present, address any situations that require doing right away without procrastination, and accept this very moment for what it is. When you’re done, I’m confident you’ll agree with Tolle.
There is no problem right now.