I recently started reading The Daily Stoic. This book contains a brief but profound philosophical message for every day of the year. It’s a great way to start my day and a great reminder that life is manageable. Lots of people figured out how to effectively navigate life long before anybody alive today was born and recorded their discoveries so that we can benefit from them thousands of years later. This is the message I read yesterday morning and it was a very timely reminder for me. It starts with a quote from Epictetus and then proceeds to the commentary from Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, the authors of The Daily Stoic. I hope you enjoy it and find value in it.
“Every event has two handles – one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other – that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.”
– Epictetus, Enchiridion, 43
The famous journalist William Seabrook suffered from such debilitating alcoholism that in 1933 he committed himself to an insane asylum, which was then the only place to get treatment for addiction. In his memoir, Asylum, he tells the story of the struggle to turn his life around inside the facility. At first he stuck to his addict way of thinking – and as a result, he was an outsider, constantly getting in trouble and rebelling against the staff. He made almost no progress and was on the verge of being asked to leave.
Then one day this very quote from Epictetus – about everything having two handles – occurred to him. “I took hold now by the other handle,” he related later, “and carried on.” He actually began to have a good time there. He focused on his recovery with real enthusiasm. “I suddenly found it wonderful, strange, and beautiful to be sober… It was as if a veil, or scum, or film had been stripped away from all things visual and auditory.” It’s an experience shared by many addicts when they finally stop doing things their way and actually open themselves to the perspectives and wisdom and lessons of those who have gone before them.
There is no promise that trying things this way – of grabbing the different handle – will have such momentous results for you. But why continue to life by the handle that hasn’t worked?