Two Handles for Every Problem — The Enchiridion

Epictetus opens with a tool: everything has two handles, one by which it may be borne and another by which it cannot. The same affair can be picked up in a way that crushes you or in a way you can carry. The handle you choose is not denial; it is how you lay hold on the fact.

He tests it on the hardest case. 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. Injustice as the whole grip makes the load impossible: rage, replay, relation reduced to the wrong alone.

Lay hold rather by the opposite: that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you. Thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne. The wrong is not erased; the bearable handle lets you respond from relation and duty instead of from the grip that cannot be carried. Choose the handle that lets you keep moving.