Audience with the Rebbe

“I remember my first private audience with R. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn, the Rebbe of Lubavitch. In the course of a long conversation I used the phrase – a classic in the vocabulary of excuse-making – “In the situation in which I find myself…” The Rebbe allowed the sentence to get no further. “No-one ever finds himself in a situation.” He said. “He places himself in a situation. And if he placed himself in this situation, he can place himself in another situation.””

Tradition in an Untraditional Age, p. 211