In the end, it's a game. Find the thing you enjoy about it and do that.

Do you know if he was running a pre-written adventure or his own homebrew campaign (there is nothing wrong with either answer)

Really it could be you or it could be the DM or most likely a bit of both. Not all DM's are for all players just as not all campaigns are for everyone. Perhaps if you try again with a different DM you might enjoy it more.

Thanks for your responses.  It his homebrew campaign, and it's his first time DM'ing.  Also, he was real particular about certain things.  For instance, he was adamant that his world happened in real time, meaning that if he wrote a bunch of content for one area, and we take a left instead of a right and don't go to that area when the event occurs, we just miss the event.  Even if we go back there, the thing had already happened.  We got off track so much, that I feel like very little of what he wrote actually had a chance to happen.  So basically he'd have to make up most of we did on the fly.

I'm hoping I'll have more fun playing with a different DM, but I'm afraid that I might now be primed to react badly to setbacks.  I've watched a bunch of D&D youtube channels, and read DM's stories, etc., and I think I fall into the camp of "never retreat, never surrender." If I don't change this habit, chances are good that I'll get the next party killed, unless the DM gives us an out.  I know that retreat is sometimes the best/only option, but I can't shake the idea that maybe we're meant to just be clever and overcome it.  Also if I strenuously disagree with what I see as a bad call, I have a hard time letting it go.  For instance, I wanted to be a College of Whispers Bard, but he made a call that nerfed it (imo), and I ended up settling for Lore:

"Mantle of Whispers:   At 6th level, you gain the ability to adopt a humanoid's persona. When a humanoid dies within 30 feet of you, you can magically capture its shadow using your reaction. You retain this shadow until you use it or you finish a long rest.

You can use the shadow as an action. When you do so, it vanishes, magically transforming into a disguise that appears on you. You now look like the dead person, but healthy and alive. This disguise lasts for 1 hour or until you end it as a bonus action."

His ruling was that the "shadow" referred to a literal shadow, so until my character used it as the disguise, he would have two shadows on the ground.  I thought that was a ridiculous interpretation, and that anyone could see it, and blah blah....still bothers me.

I guess I'm just venting now.  I'm gonna try another campaign, probably on Monday, with some strangers.  Any tips?  Any mantras I can repeat or meditate on?  Any ideas for how to judge a good DM?

Abstraction, open your mind, its not your history, keep in mind its just a game and everything is going to be okay! Remember, RPG is about fantasy, not logic! 

Or

You can start a game your own! Put your ideas on the table, build a great world full of great things! Try! 

What you're going through is normal. It's nothing to worry about. But I'd be happy to share some thoughts, if I may...

I started playing D&D in 1981. Since then I have noticed that many of the lessons I have learned over the years that have made me a better D&D player have also made me a better person in real life. D&D gives us the chance to live through someone else's adventures and thus gives us an opportunity to experience empathy and compassion and victory in ways that we may not always find comfortable in real life. Give in to those moments. Savor the role-playing aspect. Sure, combat is fun, and everyone wants to land the killing blow on the big bad monster. But the entire team had to work together to reach that point. The tension of trying to talk your way past the town guard at night... the attentiveness of spending all day in an ancient library searching for the one book that might have the demon's real name in it... the survival check that helped you guide your party around the dangers of the forest... these are all victories that helped lead the party to victory in battle. Acknowledge them, savor them, revel in them. 

There's a phrase called "min/maxing". It's a metagaming concept in which a player uses his or her knowledge of the rules of the game to try to construct a mathematically superior character. If you do that... don't. It ruins the fun. Your character is you. It's not a piece of paper with numbers on it. It's YOU. You're not perfect. None of us are. Sometimes, a character's greatest weakness can lead to some terrificly memorable storytelling. Allow your character to have flaws. Aim for Batman, not Superman. There is nothing heroic about Superman. He knows for a fact that literally nothing and no one on this planet has any chance of harming him. So nothing he does is heroic, because he knows going in that he's not facing any risk. Batman, however, knows that he's just a rich dude with toys who can be killed by a knife, a bomb, or an undercooked chicken sandwich. 

Once you've created your character, with flaws... go deep. Go beyond the character sheet. Spend time creating a background. Picking a background from the PHB is just the tip of the iceberg. Flesh out the character's history, their homeland, their education, their fears, their desires, their appearance, their voice, their relationship with the deities... Do you have a criminal record? Do you have a sweetheart? Do you (did you) have a pet? Who raised you? What's your favorite memory? Do you have any tattoos? Are your parents still alive? Can you dance? DO you dance? Why did you become a bard? Why go adventuring rather than playing in taverns? What secrets have you never told your friends? Cat person or dog person? Boxers or briefs? Beatles or Elvis? Museum or camping? 

Also - and this is really more for the entire table than just for you - when you're playing, don't say "My character does this..." Say "I do this..." It makes a difference. And when your character is speaking, use your character's voice. You don't have to use a thick accent, we're not all Matt Mercer, but make your character's voice just different enough so that others know when you are talking versus when YOU are talking. Inhabit your character. Role playing is immersive. Don't think about what you should do, think about what you WOULD do. Remember that your character doesn't know all the things that you know. Your character doesn't know that the average ogre has a better Con than Dex so you're better off using Lightning Bolt rather than Blight. Your character only knows that a nine foot tall pile of angry muscle is about to beat him into paste with a treetrunk wrapped in barbed wire. REACT! React as your character would react. You don't need to be a Julliard graduate, you're not going to win an Oscar... just be honest. React authentically. Feel the emotion, feel the adrenaline, live in that moment!

Even if your reaction is a bad idea, that's okay, as long as it's authentic. Your party is there to back you up. We all have to accept that some days you're the windshield and some days you're the bug. Some days you'll be the hero who saves the party and some days you'll be the one who gets them into the mess. And that's okay. If your party doesn't understand that, look for a better party. If your DM doesn't understand that, look for a better DM. I remember back in the 80s it was HARD to find new people to play with. Instead of the internet we had the Satanic Panic. But today there are so many ways to connect with the millions of people who have been playing D&D for years and the millions more who are joining every day. 

And joining a group, or being part of an existing group, means understanding and accepting that you are just one cog in the machine. Each and every player must show respect to the others. Let the other players have their moment in the spotlight. We all know that one player who tries to make their character the center of attention in every scene. No one likes that player. D&D is not a mathematical game that is meant to be played to win. Granted, there are many small victories in D&D, just as in life. But you never "win" or "beat" the game, because your group is just a handful of people in a much larger campaign world that will keep spinning whether you succeed or fail in that lockpicking attempt.

D&D is an act of cooperative storytelling. D&D is improvisational theater in which the cast and the audience are the same people. We must each contribute our part to the story, but we also must know when to just sit back and LISTEN and allow the other players to contribute their part. This goes for players AND dungeon masters. Only when we get past our own ego, and our own fear, and our own desire, can we truly indulge in being part of a larger group all working together toward a common goal.

Be generous, listen attentively, react authentically, and accept failure not as a negation of your self worth but rather as a learning experience that reminds us to try harder next time. It doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down. What matters is how many times you can get knocked down, and keep getting back up. 

And remember that no one is judging you or keeping score. The D&D police will never knock on your door to tell you that you played the game wrong. Because there is no "right" or "wrong" way to play the game, because it's a GAME. It's meant to be fun. Give in to the fun. And trust me, sometimes failing can be a lot of fun. Sometimes, failure will make you laugh harder than any victory ever has. 

I hope this helps. And I hope you keep giving D&D another try. The game has so much to offer. It really is a microcosm of life. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. 

There's a quote by a guy named Ambrose Redmoon that I have been repeating to myself every day for the past 30+ years: "Courage is not the absence of fear; rather, courage is the judgment that something else is more important than fear." 

your current DM seems very much his way or the high way. He doesn't want to run a game, he wants to tell a story. A good DM needs to be able to plan for the forks that the PCs can take and not just expect them to stay on a railroad, double true for a homebrew setting.

You say "if I strenuously disagree with what I see as a bad call, I have a hard time letting it go" but that could just be your BS detector going off. I agree that it is a ridiculous interpretation of the ability. Even great DMs make mistakes though, and the best thing you can do as a player would be to just let it happen in the moment, but then afterwards just talk to them / send an email that expresses your disagreement.