Michaelās natural pessimism often worked for him, up to a point. He was motivated in part out of a fear of calamity, and that often fueled his perfectionism and his success, although itās not a very useful tool to motivate people. Sometimes his concerns were justified, and it was right to address them, but often a kind of free-floating worry had him in its grip. This wasnāt Michaelās only state. He also had a natural exuberance that was often infectious. But in his later years, as the stress on him steadily increased, pessimism became the rule more than the exception, and it led him to close ranks and become increasingly cloistered.