Older people aren’t patient because they’re slow. They’ve just seen how many problems solve themselves with time.

Calm in older people is usually evidence rather than temperament. After enough decades you have watched a large number of emergencies turn into things nobody mentions again, and that record changes how the next one feels. It is a bigger sample size than you have yet.

Borrow the sample rather than waiting to collect your own. Ask an older person about something they were frantic about at your age and what became of it. Then, when the next crisis arrives, ask yourself how it is likely to look in two years. Sometimes the honest answer is serious, and then you act; often it is not.