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Stoic · Epictetus Family
In today's words

Everything has two handles, one you can carry it by and one you can't. If your brother treats you badly, don't grab it by the "he wronged me" handle. Grab it by "he's my brother, we grew up together." That one you can lift.

Original · T. W. Higginson, 1865

Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the affair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne, but rather by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you; and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne.

The point

Pick the handle you can actually carry the thing by.

On the job

Your partner missed a deadline. One handle: he let you down. The other: twelve years of jobs he didn't miss. Carry it by the second.

Enchiridion §43 · Higginson translation, 1865. Public domain. Rendering and example AI-assisted.

No fake quotes

Every passage is the public-domain text, word for word, with the translator and the year. The modern line is marked as a rendering, never put in the author's mouth.

Written for people who work

Examples set on a job site, in a kitchen at 6 a.m., or in a four-person shop. Not for philosophy students. For the rest of us.

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