A girl named Teresa Jones had a serious kidney infection. An operation was scheduled to remove one of the kidneys. After they put her to sleep, they ran final test, and discovered that the operation was not necessary. They didn’t remove the kidneys, but when she awoke, the first thing she said was, “Oh, my back. Oh, it hurts. Oh, I feel so bad. Oh, it hurts.” When Teresa was told they had not performed the operation, she was slightly embarrassed. Obviously, she went to sleep expecting to wake up hurting, and that is exactly what she did. In her mind, her pains were just as real if the operation had been performed.
One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations.
– Steve Allen
