Indeed, a specific mix of fear and excitement is probably much better for certain problems than either of the two. Fear to ground you and remind you to be sober about the problem, excitement to provide a lasting and powerful motivation.
But empirically, it seems to me that a lot of people are operating on fear/excitement mixes that are skewed too much towards “fear”, unproductively so.
Oh, I agree that some amount of fear can be useful in some circumstances. As Richard noted, the law of equal and opposite advice still applies here.
Indeed, a specific mix of fear and excitement is probably much better for certain problems than either of the two. Fear to ground you and remind you to be sober about the problem, excitement to provide a lasting and powerful motivation.
But empirically, it seems to me that a lot of people are operating on fear/excitement mixes that are skewed too much towards “fear”, unproductively so.