On numerous occasions, both in public sichos and farbrengens, and in private correspondence, the Rebbe discouraged spending one’s energy focusing on past wrongs and dwelling on negative thoughts and criticism.

Instead, the Rebbe repeatedly underscored that this energy be channeled into constructive action and real change.

During the period after the Frierdiker Rebbe’s histalkus, before the Rebbe formally took on the mantle of nesius, Reb Yoel Kahn, then a bochur, went in for yechidus. It was one of his first of many yechidus’n with the Rebbe.

In his tzetl, he had written about various matters troubling him in his avodas Hashem and personal life, and he handed it to the Rebbe.

The Rebbe read his letter and responded: Instead of thinking “Yoel iz azoi un Yoel iz azoi,” Yoel is this and Yoel is that, better use your thoughts to think about Hashem and to learn Nigleh and Chassidus.