Try Another Way, the Stoic Art of Grabbing a Different Handle

When something is not working, most of us respond by doing the same thing harder. The pitch that keeps failing, so we say it louder. The conversation that always ends in a fight, so we start it the same way again. The problem we keep attacking from the one angle that has never once worked. Effort is not the issue here. Direction is. Sometimes the smartest, bravest move is not to push harder. It is to grab a different handle.

Epictetus and the two handles

The Stoic teacher Epictetus gave us the image directly, and it has lasted two thousand years for a reason:

Everything has two handles, one by which it can be carried, and one by which it cannot.

Pick up a hard situation by the wrong handle and it stays impossible no matter how strong you are. Pick it up by the other one and suddenly it moves. His own example was a family quarrel. A brother who has wronged you can be grabbed by the handle of he wronged me, which carries nothing but resentment, or by the handle of he is my brother, which you can actually carry somewhere. Same situation, two handles, completely different weight. Most stuck problems are just people gripping the handle that does not work and calling it commitment.

Why we keep lifting the wrong way

We stay on the failing handle for a few very human reasons. Sometimes it is pride, because switching feels like admitting the first way was wrong. Sometimes it is habit, because the old approach is familiar even though it fails. And sometimes it is simple tiredness, because thinking of a new angle takes energy the struggle has already drained.

But there is nothing noble about carrying a load the hardest possible way. Repeating a failed method and expecting a new result is not persistence. It is just being stuck with extra steps, and often the fix is to deliberately try the opposite of your usual move.

Try it, get it wrong, learn, adjust

So try things, even the ones you assume will not work. Look at the problem from a fresh angle and take another run at it differently. Take the chance, make the mistakes, and treat each failure as information about which handle to drop. Remember that the facts of a situation are fixed but the frame you carry them with is yours to choose. There is almost always a sustainable way to carry what you are trying to carry, and an exhausting way, and the only way to find the good one is to stop insisting on the bad one.

You are not required to keep lifting with the handle that keeps slipping. Set it down. Walk around the thing. Grab it somewhere else.

Frequently asked questions

How is trying another way different from just giving up?
Giving up means abandoning the goal. Trying another way means keeping the goal and changing the method. You are still committed to carrying the load, you are simply refusing to keep using the grip that does not work. That is persistence with intelligence, not surrender.

What are the “two handles” Epictetus talked about?
It is his image for the fact that every event can be viewed in more than one way, and only some of those views let you handle it well. He said a wrong done by your brother has one handle, the injustice, that carries only resentment, and another, that he is your brother, that you can actually act on. One handle leads to helplessness, the other to something workable. Choosing the workable handle is a skill you can practice.