This is one of my favorite quotes:

The supreme quality of great men is the power of resting. Anxiety, restlessness, fretting are marks of weakness. (J. R. Seeley, 1868)

Despite the fusty Victorian gendered language, it captures something essential: that people who are really in control of their lives and work don’t look like they’re constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

If you were going into an emergency room, would you want a doctor who screamed at sight of blood, or one who could get a team organized to deal with the problem? In that context, would you confuse emotionalism for competence?

Obviously not.

Yet we make that mistake all the time in other kinds of workplaces. We assume that people who are anxious, restless, or fretting are the ones who are really engaged. That passion is something that should be publicly performed, not a source of energy that drives good work.