Many aspects of our material existence are not under our control or subject to our volition.
Often we are compelled by external circumstances to live in one place rather than another.
We are born in a certain place; moving from one place to another is not always easy.
To walk to the next town may take hours; to go to the next galaxy in one's mind takes an instant.
In fact, I do not even have to move much in order to do this kind of roaming.
Like it or not, we are citizens of the spiritual world, but where we dwell within it is our decision.
Just as I can put my physical body into a garden of wonderful scents or into a stinking sewer, the same is true in the spiritual world.
We each choose whether our lives will be a detective novel, a scandal sheet, or a scripture.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From Simple Words, "Spirit and Matter," by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz