I understand and feel it very much at times, too, old friend. But then I remember the perfect frame of mind for a soldier in a fight: calm and still, like the surface of an undisturbed pond. It can be applied to many other kinds of situations.
Having never been in combat (thank God) I suspect there are unusual times in which even the most hardened combat veteran can be on the edge of losing their composure.
Granted, this is politics, not combat, but these are unprecedented times.
But I do appreciate your sentiment.
Professionally, I have always striven to keep my head level and provide what leadership I can in an acute crisis, because I recognize all to clearly that panic, anger, and other negative emotions are highly contagious and not conducive to good decision making. It is a compliment to walk into a fluid situation and hear someone exclaim “Well, thank God ____ is here...”
I should practice more of that in this forum. I am trying...this has always been one of my favorite and inspirational poems of life, as it has for generations of people before me, and I read it when I feel low:
If (Rudyard Kipling)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!