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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient

wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom, everyday life.

Each one of these passages is based on the

2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and

women. For more you can visit us at daily stoic.com.

You can never undo this. Maybe the Secretary was incompetent, maybe Hadrian was working himself inhumanely hard. Maybe the stakes were extremely high, that lives were hanging in the balance on the dispatch that was being prepared. Maybe anyone would have snapped.

In any case, Hadrian did snap in anger and frustration. He not only snapped and yelled, but he

grabbed a stylus off the desk and he stabbed his secretary in the eye with it.

Hadrian had the power of life and death and a time when staff and slaves were expendable.

So in this fit of rage he used it.

Still it was shocking and horrifying to all who witnessed it.

Even Hadrian seemed to understand that he had crossed a line.

Begging for the man's forgiveness later, he offered favors or money or a promotion.

Galen, Marcus Aurelius's doctor, would write later that when the man was told he could

have anything he wanted, the man promptly replied that he would like his eye back, for what gift could provide compensation for the loss of an eye, Galin asked.

The truth is nothing can undo what we do out of anger. We can't take back what we said. We can't turn back the clock on the harm

we've inflicted or the mistakes that we have made. This is why Seneca wrote his famous

essay on anger, which we actually carry in the painted porch.

He said the only cure for anger is prevention,

stopping yourself before you do the thing that you regret,

...